AKRON, Ohio — A variety of fruits and vegetables are growing at new community garden at the University of Akron.
Alison Doehring, the director of ZipAssit, the university’s student advocacy and support office, helped bring this garden to life.
Doehring said the garden serves many purposes on the urban campus, the most important of which is providing students access to healthy foods for free.
“We know that we have a need with students seeking fresh produce,” Doehring said. “We recognize inflation and we recognize students sometimes don’t have the opportunity to have fresh produce, or it’s too expensive.”
All students are welcome to spend time in the garden and pick their own fruits or vegetables. Produce will also be taken to the Campus Cupboard, a food pantry on campus that helps students in need.
University officials reported a 260% increase in food insecurity among students during the pandemic.
Alissa Coonfield, a PhD student at the school, also played a major role in helping to bring the garden to life.
“I mean, times are tough. A lot of students like myself kind of struggle financially,” Coonfield said. “With prices of produce just skyrocketing these days, it’s super important that we have stuff like this available.”
Coonfield said the garden also provides stress relief for students between classes.
“It is a wonderful break from working in the lab, for sure,” Coonfield said. “Gardening and getting your hands dirty, also just picking gorgeous little veggies and things. It helps so much.”
The garden also has educational benefits. It contains two beehives that are used for students to study pollinators.
“We are a research institution. We are also blessed to be in a metropolitan area,” Doehring said. “Creating an urban garden and teaching our students how to study and be in that space is an added benefit of having our campus garden.”
The university said it hopes students will continue to add on to the garden, which is on a half acre of land.
