GLENDALE, Utah — For the fourth consecutive year, a major, national spirits brand is teaming up with a local Community Garden to enhance its ability to help deliver fresh produce to neighbors in need. It’s been an incredible transformation this past year for the Wasatch Community Garden urban farm in Glendale, assisted in part by Tito‘s block-to-block program.
“This farm was built with plenty of people power. Whether it’s volunteers, donors, community partners,” stated Katie Dwyer, the garden's executive director.
Tito‘s brand vodka has been helping places like Wasatch Community Gardens for years. This summer, Dwyer says Tito’s is assisting with a new project at the brand-new urban farm. “They’ve helped us in our community garden spaces. They’ve also came to our old farm location to help build a greenhouse. They helped us move that location across town to this new site last year, and they’ll be helping us build a paved, outdoor kitchen.”
The kitchen will allow garden volunteers to teach classes and show people how to properly prepare and preserve the produce they grow in their yard. That will bring even more folks from the community into this space.
And when they arrive, they’ll be greeted by some local artwork like the works of Brody Froelich, a local artist and volunteer at the garden. In his younger days, he painted graffiti, but now uses his talents to beautify spaces all around Salt Lake.
He jumped at the chance to brighten up the old shipping containers that make up the Wasatch Community Garden’s entrance and offices. “There’s a lot of importance in community gardening in my opinion. And anything I can do to help make it, I mean, it looked really industrial before all the paint got on there, so you know, make it a little more vibrant.”
The Tito’s block-to-block event and the building of the new kitchen get underway Wednesday at 9:00 a.m., and the festivities run throughout the day until 5:00 p.m.
