New Sustainable Development In St. Paul Comes With Hardy Urban Garden
ST. PAUL, Minn. (WCCO) – Eleventh-grader Cecelia Rodriguez now knows food doesn't come from the grocery store, it grows in the dirt.
"It teaches me how much hard work is put into food that gets on your table and how much love and care people actually put into your food before it goes off and people eat it," she said Tuesday.
The high-schooler is one of many paid interns learning about urban farming, conservation and cooking through Urban Roots.
"We grow everything organically," said program manager Summer Badawi.
She also hopes the program, which has been around for 20 years, also helps tap participant's entrepreneurial spirit.
"We have a program that interns work seed to sale," Badawi said. "So they're involved in everything from prepping beds, planting, creating invoices, packing and delivering produce."
With a snip of a ribbon, the garden's official open Tuesday is now part of a larger redevelopment.
In St. Paul's Dayton's Bluff neighborhood, overlooking Interstate 35E and University Avenue, is Rivoli Bluff, a sustainable redevelopment that's replaced a building that had been an eyesore.
Along with 100 planned homes and future bike trail, you find an urban tunnel greenhouse to help extend the growing season. There's also a newly planted orchard of fruit trees as well as native prairie flowers to help support hives of honey bees.
Rivoli Bluffs is a rural gem with a million-dollar city view.
"I never thought I was ever part of a community until I started working here," Rodriguez said.
Far beyond simply raising crops, it's growing a better future.
