For the past 10 years, Allison DeHonney has been growing gardens, building greenhouses and training her East Side neighbors to grow their vegetables as part of Buffalo Go Green, the nonprofit arm of her urban farm business, Urban Fruits & Veggies.
At the same time, she also has been building a vision for a community wellness center that would bring a hydroponic farm, food market, education kitchen, yoga studio and events space to Buffalo's most underserved area. Last year, Buffalo Go Green got a grant from the Honey Bee Foundation to buy a 2-acre former industrial site at Manhattan Avenue and East Amherst Street.
Now the Buffalo Bills Foundation is stepping up to kick off construction of the Holistic Wellness and Agriculture Education Campus with a $571,000 donation for the first phase of the project.
Buffalo Bills defensive end Dawuane Smoot joined DeHonney and other community members Monday to announce the start of the project and the launch of a capital campaign to see it to completion.
The Bills Foundation grant will help turn two of three warehouse-type buildings on the site into a teaching kitchen/wellness studio and an indoor farm with 50,000 square feet of year-round hydroponic growing space that will produce 3 to 4 tons of fresh produce annually, said Buffalo Go Green Operations Manager Marilyn Rodgers.
Buffalo Go Green will be able to offer classes in nutrition and hands-on cooking to residents using fresh-grown produce from the farm as soon as this fall.
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