Fort Worth Volunteer Group Helping Food Deserts with Vegetable Gardens Says It Needs Funding

Fort Worth, Texas. ZIP Code 76104 in Fort Worth has the lowest life expectancy in Texas. Most do not live past the age of 67.

Interstate 35 shares the zip code and serves as a resource dividing line of sorts with the city’s medical district to the west and east, the underserved most minority areas of Morningside, Hillside, and Historic Southside.

Dr. Henry Scott called 76104 and Historic Southside home for 12 years.

“There are so many residents here that we have to drive so far to get to the grocery store,” Scott said. “It worries me that we don’t have it.”

This area is a food desert. A Southwestern UT study found that life expectancy was 12 years lower than the national average.

However, Scott’s backyard is part of a grassroots effort to change the neighborhood’s narrative.

Southside Community Garden began laying out gardens in 2021. Scott currently has collards, chard and onions that have survived the recent winter freeze but have lost count of all the different fruits and vegetables he has grown.

“There is something about the taste of fresh vegetables that is so different from what you can buy in the store,” he said.

The idea started with Patrice Jones. She read the UTSW study on low life expectancy and considered building a community garden, but decided that small 8-foot by 4-foot garden beds in the backyard would be more feasible.

“You’ll find plenty of Family Dollar, Dollar Generals, and Dollar Trees stores that sell processed food, beer and wine, but they don’t sell fresh produce,” Jones said.

Jones had an idea, but lacked the resources to bring it to life.

Things changed when she ordered a refrigerator from Lowe, but the company ruined the delivery by accidentally giving the refrigerator to someone else.

They offered her a $500 gift card, but after she called back and forth to report the problem to the company manager, she was able to convince them to provide a donation of $5,000 in lumber that helped build the first 25 boxes.

“I think they are already tired of me calling and leaving messages,” she said.

She jokes that neither she nor the other volunteers had any idea what that amount of lumber would look like and were shocked when an 18-wheel forklift truck pulled up to their warehouse.

“We were so naive,” Jones said. “We think we’re just going to physically collect the lumber, no, no, no.”

Soil was donated free of charge, and Fort Worth Botanical Gardens’ head gardener helped teach how to plant and grow vegetables.

“The community used their own trucks, gave us donations, didn’t charge us for the land,” Jones said.

This was in the spring of 2021. Now 220 people have grown in 64 backyards.

“It’s a thrill to watch it grow and be able to eat fresh vegetables from your garden,” Scott said. “We had corn. We had peas. What didn’t we have here?

Scott moved from teaching to mentoring.

“When you call them and talk to them on the phone, they say, ‘My garden does this, my garden, oh wow, thanks!'” he said. “This is the answer we get.”

Now he’s handing out supplements he can’t freeze.

“People we don’t even know,” Scott said. “Neighbors behind us, we will see them and say: “Hey, do you like okra?”

“There should be no fresh produce anywhere in this country,” Jones said.

The group is now registered as 501c3. United Way, Texas Health Resources, and even Lowe’s ongoing help kept them going, but Jones said they were running out of funding and needed help.

“I didn’t want to feel comfortable about asking for money before we showed, ‘Hey, here’s what we can do without money,'” she said.

The gardens cost about $1,000 each. The group is providing seeds, tools and support, and demand is so high that they have closed their online registration.

“I’m sad that we have to limit this and say no, because we literally just don’t have the funding,” Jones said.

Gardens were as much a source of pride as food. This is life in an area known for death.

“I like it,” Scott said. “I think it’s very necessary, very necessary.”

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