City Slicker Farms

Groundbreaking Ceremony for Innovative West Oakland Urban Farm and Park

1.4 Acre Farm and Park Will Provide Food and Community Resources
as Vacant Industrial Lot Is Transformed into Nourishing Community Space

On January 31, 2013 City Slicker Farms will present a groundbreaking ceremony to mark the start of development for the West Oakland Urban Farm and Park, a new kind of community park space that hosts space for healthy food cultivation, all developed in partnership with the West Oakland community. What began in 2010 as a seed of hope is now coming to fruition, since City Slicker Farms purchased the land at the turn of 2013. Located at 28^th and Peralta Streets in West Oakland, the site of a former vacant industrial lot, the West Oakland Urban Farm and Park will double the amount of fresh food produced and distributed to the West Oakland community through City Slicker Farms’ Community Market Farms program, while providing a new park for local residents.

City Slicker Farms, a non-profit urban farming organization supporting the West Oakland community for the past 12 years, invites press, partners, funders, supporters, and community members to attend this historic groundbreaking ceremony. This project is supported by a Proposition 84 grant, and to speak on behalf of the grant convenors will be Deputy Director Sedrick Mitchell of the California Department of Parks and Recreation. Notable government officials are scheduled to speak, amongst other honored guests. For more information and to schedule interviews with speakers and City Slicker Farms officials, please contact Anna La at (510) 763-4241 or anna [at] cityslickerfarms.org.

What:      Groundbreaking for City Slicker Farms West Oakland Urban Farm and Park

Details:        Speaking program, plus interview and photographic opportunities with notable guests

When:       Thursday, January 31, 2013 at 1PM

Where:     Helen and Peralta Streets, Oakland CA

Assets:    Available onsite or by request to [email protected]

City Slicker Farms is a 501(c)(3) non-profit based in Oakland. For more information about City Slicker Farms and this project, visit https://www.cityslickerfarms.org/prop-84-new-farm-and-park or call (510) 763-4241.

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With twelve years of experience, City Slicker Farms continues to fulfill its mission of empowering West Oakland community members to meet their basic need for fresh, healthy food by creating sustainable, high-yield urban farms and backyard gardens. City Slicker Farms’ programs have addressed food insecurity in the most fundamental ways: helping people grow food where they live and access fresh food in places where it simply did not exist. City Slicker Farms provides access to healthy and affordable food for West Oakland residents and their families through the Community Market Farms Program, which supplies pesticide-free, sustainable, healthy produce on a sliding scale-basis to West Oakland residents, the Backyard Garden Program, where local residents—alongside volunteers and garden mentors—build a food garden in their own backyard, and the Urban Farming Education Program that provides opportunities for people of all ages to develop job skills, learn how to grow food in urban spaces, and develop a greater understanding of community, food, and environmental issues. These programs don’t merely transform broken food systems; by advocating for policies that foster health and empowerment, by providing training and educational opportunities, and by cultivating underutilized, blighted urban spaces turning them into places of civic pride, they also transform communities.