Colonial Place / Riverview
Knitting Mill Creek Community Garden
Several gardens; a Community Garden.
Have a hankering for home-grown tomatoes, cukes, and squash? Spring is right around the corner--and so is the 10th anniversary of the Knitting Mill Creek Community Garden. If a veggie patch isn't possible in your own yard, rent a plot at the award-winning KMC Community Garden, located at the end of Mayflower Road between Georgia and Michigan Avenues, behind Fellini's.
For more details visit www.kmccommunitygarden.com.
KMC Community Garden Co-Chairs:
- Greg and Susan VanHecke
- Jim Holden
KMC Community Garden Wins City of Norfolk's "COOL" Award (June 2010)
Knitting Mill Creek Community Garden was voted one of the top five citizen-directed neighborhood improvement projects in Norfolk, earning the city's COOL Award.
COOL, which stands for Civic Opportunity and Outstanding Leadership, is a recognition program established by Norfolk's Bureau of Community Outreach that honors grassroots projects started by residents to improve the quality of life in their neighborhoods.
Selected with input from community and agency stakeholders, the Knitting Mill Creek Community Garden won the award because of its conversion and ongoing maintenance of a once-vacant, trash-filled lot in Colonial Place into public green space and communal and personal garden plots. The KMC Community Garden celebrates its tenth anniversary this year with new leadership, an influx of enthusiastic new membership, and an exciting rainwater abatement project being installed in conjunction with the Norfolk Master Gardeners.
“Sharing grassroots efforts with other neighbors as a way to ignite a spark for projects in other neighborhoods is the basis for the COOL award,” said Marty Raiss, program administrator with Community Outreach for the City of Norfolk.
The COOL award is presented based on the following criteria: residents working together as volunteers to improve the community; encouraging individual and community responsibility for the neighborhood; an increased awareness of the importance of enhancing the quality of life in Norfolk through neighborhood programs, events or projects; and the promotion of neighborhood unity and significant impact on neighborhood communication, interaction and cooperation.
Other citizen-led projects to receive COOL honors include Fairmount Park Civic League's beautification committee and neighborhood watch program; the Ballentine Bark Park, a dog park initiated by residents of the Ballentine Park neighborhood; the Lafayette Wetlands Partnership, a citizen-based group with the mission of preserving an urban wetland along the Lafayette River; and Art/Everywhere, in which empty storefront windows along Granby Street were filled with various art media including sculpture, paintings and photography. Congratulations to KMC gardeners and supporters for this well-deserved recognition of their efforts and dedication.
One May 6, 2000, the Knitting Mill Creek Community Garden was officially dedicated. Mayor Paul Fraim and Senator Yvonne Miller joined Becky Kiser, the motivating force behind this project, to plant two fruit trees near the entrance to the garden, which is located in the Mayflower Road paper street behind Fellini's on Colley Avenue.
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Becky Kiser Mayor Paul Fraim | Signs of New Life |
The Proposed Layout
A perfect site. 60 feet by 200 feet. Sun and shade.
An old creek bed whose soil tested good.
Four Months Later
Another view of the Award-Winning Knitting Mill Creek Community Garden - Recipient in October 2000 of a Beautification and an Environmental Work Award from the Norfolk Environmental Commission
