Community gardeners rally in City Hall to decry funding cuts

Kansas City’s community gardeners took a break from their winter work Tuesday to plead with City Council members to reverse what would be a 42 percent drop in city funding in three years.

“It seems like the city should be able to find the money somewhere,” Kansas City Community Gardens Executive Director Ben Sharda said of the $33,000 loss of funds. For the city “it’s just a drop in the bucket.”

More than 50 supporters crowded into the City Council’s Housing Committee meeting presentation on federal Community Development Block Grant funds because that’s historically the source the city has drawn on for the gardens program.

But Sharda and the rest of the gardeners weren’t necessarily asking for a bigger piece of that pie. Many public service agencies are getting help from the federal grants — several of whom also spoke before the committee — and Sharda said they know they are worthy of support as well.

They believe the garden program, because of its work improving nutrition in schools and neighborhoods and for its reclamation of many of the city’s vacant lots, deserves funding out of the city budget.

The program, started in 1979, reported it now serves 1,300 low-income families and is working with 207 schools and 260 community organizations. It received $78,000 in federal Community Development Block Grants in 2014, but it is slated to receive $45,000 in the city’s 2017 proposal.

The city might explore creative options to help boost its support, said Stuart Bullington, the city’s assistant director for neighborhood and housing services, speaking after the committee meeting.

The city has vacant properties — the vacant land left after the razing of Chick Elementary School, for example — whose management and upkeep could be contracted to the community garden program, Bullington said.

But he agreed that the federal grant dollars are difficult to spare.

The city can allot about $1.1 million of the grant dollars to community service programs, and split it among 25 programs. Applications for the funding exceeded $2.7 million, he said.

Some of the recipients who spoke at the hearing — thanking the committee for its support — were the Sheffield Place, Green Works, Emmanuel Family and Child Development Center, the Palestine Senior Activity Center and reStart.

City Councilman and Housing Committee chairman Quinton Lucas, saw the gardeners’ rally as a precursor to many hard budget decisions ahead.

The attention right now is on the debates around the city’s planned $800 million general obligation bond issue, but next up “is the big budget battle,” Lucas said.

So for groups wanting to get a jump, “this is the quintessential time to be asking.”

This story was originally published January 17, 2017 at 4:29 PM with the headline "Community gardeners rally in City Hall to decry funding cuts."