Cary’s ‘Power of Prevention’ donates $10K toward UMFK greenhouse infrastructure
FORT KENT, Maine — Power of Prevention (POP), a program of Cary Medical Center, is partnering with the University of Maine at Fort Kent to help expand the growing capacity of the university’s greenhouse garden by awarding to the university $10,000 for greenhouse infrastructure improvements. The funding is part of ongoing community health improvement efforts paid for in part by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Partnerships to Improve Community Health (PICH) grant.
The university will be supplying fresh, locally grown produce to the Fort Kent food pantry to assist with combating hunger in this area, as well as providing students with a sustainable agriculture experience both inside and outside of class.
While the greenhouse is an established project with support from the university, the partnership between the university and the community food pantry is a pilot program.
This fall, six students from environmental studies and biology faculty member Kim Borges’ fall Principles of Environmental Science class have been busy preparing the greenhouse for a late fall and early spring harvest. Using succession planting, the students have planted a cold-hardy variety of carrots, as well as the dark leafy greens spinach, arugula, pac choi, and mache.
A biology student supervised by Borges will also work through the year on the greenhouse project. Earlier this month, four First-Year Experience students from the nursing, business and biology programs helped to plant an oat cover crop on the section of the greenhouse plot that is uncovered and resting overwinter for planting next spring.
This year, Borges said, she has had some interest from UMFK athletics students, who are interested in the benefits a healthy diet could have on their sports performance and want to learn gardening techniques. Borges said that she intends to open up opportunities to work in the greenhouse to other students as well, on an as-needed basis.
UMFK faculty member Kurt Holzhausen will assist with reconstruction redesign on the exterior of the greenhouse, from improvements to the track system to rebuilding the end walls of the structure for efficiency. Environmental studies and biology faculty member Peter Nelson lead student involvement to incorporate a brand-new vertical hydroponics garden into the project, in order to increase production in the winter months.
“The PICH funding will provide a tremendous boost to our campus four-season gardening project,” Borges said. “With the funding, we will increase crop production by expanding use of our high tunnel and introducing hydroponic growing. The project expansion will reap benefits across the UMaine Fort Kent community by providing more students and staff with opportunities for hands-on experience growing and harvesting vegetables year round.
“We are very excited about this opportunity, and look forward to contributing produce to the local community this year,”
The university will work alongside Northern Maine Medical Center as a collaborating partner in the Eastern Maine Medical Center’s PICH grant-funded Community and Clinical Linkages (CCL) program.
Director of Communications and Service Excellence Joanne Fortin of NMMC said, “With food insecurity affecting one-third to one-half of the people in parts of Aroostook County, the community role to assist these individuals to thrive is critical. The support from the Community Clinical Linkage grant to expand the framework of the UMFK greenhouse to grow more fresh produce is an innovative way to support local food pantries to include fresh foods.”
Bill Flagg, director of community relations and development at Cary Medical Center, said having access to healthy local foods will be a real boost to the clinician referral process.
“Historically, food banks or food pantries have been at the mercy of what food was provided to them by grocers or individual,” Flagg said. “Sometimes it might be 50 gallons of ice cream that was going to expire or cases of Spaghetti-Os, cookies or other junk food. With the effort we are now engaged in at the University of Maine at Fort Kent we know that there will be healthy, fresh, and nutritious foods, locally grown in the food bank.”
Over the next year, the university will implement the infrastructure improvements provided through PICH funding and begin the expanded growing program. POP staff hope to see the pilot program provide initiative and inspiration in other PICH partner communities as a role model for community garden/food pantry partnerships, and to see a measurable increase in the amount of fresh food distributed to food-insecure residents.
