Growing Something Good
Andrew Reynolds
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Story By Evan Mealins Photos By Marcia Hillsman
wing by O Grows Community Garden and you might see high school and middle school students planting herbs, or residents tending to their plots. You might see children playing with pet goats. On Saturday mornings, you can see local farmers set up their tables to sell their produce. O Grows, short for Opelika Grows, is a communityuniversity partnership between Opelika City Schools, the Food Bank of East Alabama, Envision Opelika and Auburn University. It was started in 2012 by Sean Forbes, a professor in Auburn’s College of Education, and Susan
LIVELee
Forbes. The garden is located at 1103 Glenn St. in Opelika. O Grows interacts with the Opelika community via its community garden that is open to anyone, its weekly farmers’ markets and its youth programs to teach students about agriculture. At the most basic level, the organization serves two functions: improving access to healthy food and giving students, particularly those most often written off by the education system, a place to learn that isn’t a classroom. “You’ve got students … who could really use some hands-on experiences,” Sean said. “There’s a lot of food
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