Community Gardens and their Perceived Effects on Participants

Community gardens in the United States have emerged during periods of economic hardship. In the past, they gained momentum as “victory gardens” during World War II as means of supplementing domestic food supply (Draper, 2010). A community garden is a piece of land collectively gardened by multiple individuals in a community (Draper & Freedman, 2010). These gardens are experiencing resurgence since 2009, when the United States plummeted into the worst recession since the Great Depression. There has been a 19% increase in what are being termed “recession gardens,” the victory gardens of this generation (Draper, 2010). This exploratory, quantitative study aims to further understand the perceived economic, social, physical and mental health benefits gleaned from community garden participation, and will also explore participants’ motivations for joining a community garden. Approximately 200 participants will be recruited from eight different Rochester area gardens. A self-administered survey assessing these three key constructs will be administered over a one month time period. Univariate and bivariate analyses will be conducted on the collected data. Based on previous research, it is anticipated that participants will experience some level of benefit in the domains of economic, mental and physical health, but that financial benefits will prove most significant. These findings will provide insight regarding community perspectives on the effects of garden interventions in Rochester, and provide evidence that gardens empower a community nutritionally, economically and socially by decreasing dependence on commercial agricultural production and state aid, thus providing myriad benefit