PHILADELPHIA, Oct. 9 – State Rep. Joanna McClinton hosted Gov. Tom Wolf on an exclusive tour of the longstanding Sankofa Community Farm to celebrate the importance of supporting agriculture in urban communities.
The tour comes following McClinton’s announcement that John Bartram’s Garden Association received a $50,000 grant from the state’s first-ever Urban Agriculture Grants program, which she voted to create, to be used to purchase raised beds, tools and refrigeration equipment for the Sankofa Community Farm.
“I was proud to host Governor Wolf on this tour to demonstrate how beneficial these inaugural grants are in supporting agricultural initiatives in urban areas like Southwest Philly where some neighborhoods are food deserts,” McClinton said. “For 10 years, Sankofa Community Farm has been filling that void by making farm-to-table accessible to many local residents by providing fresh produce that is locally cultivated and grown by Southwest Philly teens.”
McClinton said Sankofa’s values of teaching local youth self-sustainability through agriculture aligns with the grants program’s purpose of providing opportunities for entrepreneurship and community-building through the continued development of urban agriculture infrastructure.
Sankofa Community Garden, located in the historic Bartram’s Garden, was among the first of 28 projects statewide to receive Urban Agriculture Grants totaling $500,000.
