Healcrest Urban Community Farm is an established urban farm in Garfield (Pittburgh's East End) now in its 5th year of growing food, teaching community members about urban farm production; green vacant land use; youth employment and mentorship. Established in 2005, it started as 15 abandoned and delinquent city lots. Maria Graziani, Project Facilitator and owner of over 40% of the land with 30% managed in partnership with the Bloomfield-Garfield Corporation, City of Pittsburgh Green Up program and the Urban Redevelopment Authority, began to clean-up the land and combine properties to form Healcrest Urban Farms, Inc. The total land, which lies between Atlantic and Pacific Avenues, with the entrance at Hillcrest Street in Garfield Heights, equals 1.7 acres. With 4 established mixed vegetable/herb/fruit gardens, young orchard, community circle, garden shed, rainwater collection systems and a greenhouse, Healcrest Urban Farms is well on its way to being the strongest single-community local food and green resource in Pittsburgh.
Our mission has from conception and continues to be:
Advocating the peoples’ power to grow healthy, affordable and culturally-appropriate foods through voluntary community action, commitment and collaboration.
Healcrest Urban Farms is a small for-profit company (just incorporated in December of 2009) that is managed as a non-profit social enterprise. We are establishing ourselves as a green business to grow and sell affordable, culturally appropriate vegetables to our community. In addition we partner with non-profit organizations to provide needed services to our Garfield Community. For the past five years we have provided youth educational paid internships. In 2005, through a partnership with the University of Pittsburgh Community Health and Environment Collaborative (CHEC), 10 youth interned at the farm. The following year 10 more youth, ages 16-18 joined us, through collaboration with the Student Conservation Association. In 2007, through ongoing collaborations with Urban Farming Initiative, Youthplaces, the Heinz Endowments and again Student Conservation Association, over 14 youth joined us for 7 weeks of urban farm work, mentorship, entrepreneurial education and social development. In 2008 we established our youth paid internship again through support from the Heinz Endowments and fiscally-managed through Grow Pittsburgh and finally, last year, in 2009 we expanded our ongoing partnership with the Bloomfield-Garfield Corporation and joined their Green-Up! Youth internship program – funded and supported by the City of Pittsburgh.
2010 is seeing great movements in green businesses. With our new incorporation we hope to provide more and more healthy, locally-grown food to our east end community. In addition we are continuing our nonprofit partnerships to provide summer internships, school-based greenhouse programs and employment opportunities for women of culture.