C I T Y L I F E | FA R M I N G
A labour of love AIRDRIE URBAN FARM COLLECTIVE STORY BY JOSIE RANDALL
“We needed a place where people could come and learn how to grow food and actively participate by doing it themselves. It just brings a sense of community when we are all working together.”
O
n a dusty plot in the southwest corner of Airdrie, you’ll find a three-year-old toddling around with a mini wheelbarrow doing his best to pick weeds around tomatoes. Perhaps doing more harm than good, according to Jenn Katerina, who created Airdrie Urban Farm Collective in spring 2021. The idea was to create a space where people from all walks of life could gather outdoors to learn about growing food by getting their hands dirty – and eventually enjoy the fruits of their labour. “It’s not like a community garden where everyone gets their own
space. Here, everyone does everything together. We all plant, water, tend and harvest everything together as a community,” says Katerina. “Airdrie needed something like this. We needed a place where people could come and learn how to grow food and actively participate by doing it themselves. It just brings a sense of community when we are all working together.” It was inspired by Grow Calgary Farm, one of the largest urban community farms in Canada that grows fresh produce for social agencies in Calgary. S U M M E R 2022
|
airdrielife.com
77
