The Urban Food Forest & Pollinator Space project will develop vacant lots into public green spaces that will serve as free-access fruit and nut forests, to increase access to healthy foods for local residents while simultaneously creating pollinator habitats to assist with ecological restoration in urban areas. This project will serve low-to-moderate income populations in the severely distressed and underserved area of the East End and will include native plant agriculture species such as passionfruit, pawpaw, persimmon, common plum, blackberry, blueberry, hazelnut, pecan, and sunflowers.

Dr. Eugenia South, an assistant professor of emergency medicine at the University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine states that “Vacant lot greening is a very simple structural intervention that’s relatively low-cost and that can have a potentially wide or broad population impact. Performing simple interventions to the neighborhood environment has an impact on health.”