Landscape Architect Articles

North End Opportunity Farm08-12-13 | News

North End Opportunity Farm

Carolinas Irrigation Association and the Green Industry Council of North Carolina saw an opportunity for workers at North End Opportunity Farm in Charlotte. This gave volunteer landscape contractors and irrigation consultants an opportunity to reach out to enhance this project and add to its success.

The plan was to install the basics of the system and train the workers to install the drip line so that they can alter and/or change it as their crops grow and change.

Carolinas Irrigation Association and the Green Industry Council of North Carolina teamed up to provide a drip irrigation system for the North End Opportunity Farm. These groups saw this, not only as an opportunity for the workers at the farm, but also as an opportunity for us that are more fortunate to reach out to enhance this project and hopefully add to it's success.

We installed a basic 7-zone drip system for the existing raised planting beds and providing for future expansion of the system.

Once they find their success, the hope is to be able to return and grow the system as they grow their farm.

Following in the wake of the beautification of NoDa and the South End, agribusiness in Charlotte, just may be the future of the North End corridor. Imagine how quaint urban gardens interspersed with small mom–and–pop farmers markets and roadside stands cannot only put a smile on the face of the neighborhood but its neighbors in need as well. Born out of the locally grown food movement, North End Opportunity Farm is not only a blessing for restaurateurs in uptown area but for farmhands as well.

By hiring and training only the homeless shelter residents just down the street, the objective is to help the labor force transition out of homelessness and into an environment where they can pursue their aspirations prior to shelter living.

To accommodate as many of our neighbors as possible, the business model requires us to be as labor intensive as our budget will allow while still being able to cover the other expenses associated with running a successful farm.

Generating as much revenue per square foot on the first 2-acre site is of paramount importance. Much to our pleasant surprise, an additional revenue stream in the way of grants, fundraising and corporate sponsorship spearheaded by an overwhelming amount of city government and community support, allowed us to expedite and facilitate our ultimate objective of providing our people with permanent housing, food, continuing education, vocational training, spiritual support and the like. All of which will be outside of a shelter environment and dependency.