Gathering Garden NIC has partnered with the Kootenai Environmental Alliance to use land for the Gathering Garden – an all-volunteer effort to build an urban farming and garden education center. Kootenai Environmental Alliance hopes to transform what started as a slash pile into a gathering place, a site for education about organic gardening, said Adrienne Cronebaugh, executive director of KEA. “We want to connect people with the food that feeds them,” Cronebaugh said. “We need to be conscious of our local food web.” Garry Stark, NIC assistant director of Facilities Operations, said the Gathering Garden will help faculty by expanding their curriculum. Herbs grown in the garden can be used by students in the culinary program, for instance. A pumpkin patch will be used by the Children’s Center. But the garden will be more than a college resource, Stark said. It will be a community resource, too. Much of the food grown in the Gathering Garden will go to local food banks. Community members will have the opportunity to work in the garden in exchange for some of the food grown there, or to buy food from the garden.
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