Central to our effort, the Rooftop Community Garden at the New Settlement Community Center on Jerome Avenue plays a vital role in the food stability, health, and wellness of the Mount Eden community. The garden is part of New Settlement’s community-wide strategy to increase access to green space and connect our neighbors to healthy and nutritious food. Our community, the Mount Eden neighborhood of the Bronx, has extremely high rates of food insecurity and hunger. Beyond hunger and malnutrition, our community’s high rates of diabetes, heart disease, and obesity underscore the need for more nutrition education and green space.
Through our Rooftop Garden, we offer not only a green space where community members are welcome to stroll, relax, and convene; we also provide programming that teaches community members how to grow their own food, cook the food they harvest, and to make better nutritional decisions for themselves. We encourage whole families to come and attend our programs and workshops as a way of facilitating intergenerational connections to healthy food.
