The city of Kent held an unusual ribbon cutting Wednesday night. Mayor Dana Ralph cut a green ribbon with garden shears, opening a new community pea patch.
In the parking lot of 930 E James Street sit 50 new garden plots for refugees and immigrants in the community.
The Hillside Church donated an acre of its parking lot, converting the ground with help from World Relief Seattle (WRS).
WRS supports refugees' and immigrants' resettlement transition into a new home in King County.
The garden, officially named the Hillside Paradise Parking Plots Community Garden, strives to provide immigrants and refugees within the Kent community access to affordable fruits and vegetables. The garden is located in the middle of a food desert: a living space where many residents live under the poverty line and far from a supermarket.
Mayor Ralph stood alongside city council members Wednesday night to proclaim May 9, 2018, Hillside Paradise Parking Plots Community Gardens Day.
"Living in apartments offers community members little connection to the soil and a chance to grow culturally appropriate fruits and vegetables that are not readily available in the local grocery stores," Mayor Ralph said before the ribbon cutting.
WRS will teach the new gardeners how to garden in the Northwest climate and work with them to cook the produce in a healthy way.
"The community space will also feature green infrastructure components, including water catchment from the metal roof and filtration for parking lot run-off through a combination of retention ponds, rain gardens and cisterns," The Nature Conservancy said in a release.
