By Amanda Ensinger
Staff Writer
The Prairie Township Community Center announced a new partnership that it hopes will motivate residents to think outside the box when it comes to living a healthier life.
The community center will partner with Creative Mobile Interiors to bring The Growroom to the Prairie Township Community Center.
According to Prairie Township Community Center Director James Gant, the room integrates creative food producing architecture designs with urban farming to help residents who live in cities feed themselves.
“We reached out to Creative Mobile Interiors and they wanted to get involved in the community,” Gant said. “We wanted to do something that would start a conversation around healthy eating and producing healthy foods in small spaces.”
According to Gant, the township and Creative Mobile decided that to achieve these goals,they must build their own Growroom. The Growroom is a circle shelf herb and produce growing station that was originally designed by Space10.
Space10 is a lab based out of Copenhagen, Denmark with a mission to design more sustainable ways of living. Space10 provided free designs of The Growroom and Creative Mobile agreed to use these designs and build their own Growroom for the Prairie Township Community Center. They also agreed to pay for all the materials and manpower to put The Growroom together.
“Once complete, we will have it upstairs on our walking track,” Gant said. “People will be able to view The Growroom and take what they would like from it.
Gant said they plan on planting a variety of herbs and vegetables in The Growroom once they figure out how much lighting the new plants will need to thrive. However, besides offering residents a place to get access to free produce, Gant also hopes this new growing operation will inspire others to start their own indoor gardens at home.
“We have found we have a lot of seniors who aren’t able to get down on the ground anymore,” Gant said. “We also have a lot of people who live in apartments and don’t have access to land to garden outside. We hope this will start a conversation about other options to grow your own fresh produce.”
Gant said there are a variety of benefits to growing your own food that they hope to communicate to residents. Some of these benefits include saving money on groceries, eating healthier and learning a new hobby.
“It is easier than you might think,” Gant said. “You can find shelves or containers around the house to put the plants in, use sunlight or inexpensive LED growing lights and it takes very little time.”
Gant said they plan on keeping The Growroom all year round and hope residents will see you can have your own fresh produce throughout the year, not just during warmer months.
“This is just another initiative in our mission to build a fun and healthy community,” Gant said. “We hope by educating people on this and breaking down the barriers, we will inspire our community members to continue to live healthier lifestyles. “
For more information on the new Prairie Township Community Center Growroom, visit www.prairietownship.org.
