Welcome to the Mission Hill Health Movement!
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Gore St Garden
Recognized by Mayor Wu as Rookie Garden of the Year! On Saturday, March 18th at the Annual Gardeners' Gathering, the City of Boston and the Trustees of Reservations, recognized the hard work of many residents and others by naming the MHHM's Gore St Garden, ROOKIE GARDEN OF THE YEAR! The Gore Street Garden developed through the efforts of many Mission Hill residents, from the late long-term homeowner who, in the 1980’s, divided the vacant lot into a section for cars and a section for where he planted flowers, to tenants in the early 2000s who created and planted raised bed vegetable gardens. In a 2015 disposition process of City-owned land on Mission Hill, residents identified 6-8 Gore Street as a place they wanted to remain as open space and a community garden. The Mission Hill Health Movement convened neighbors and gardeners to develop and submit a proposal, which the City accepted. MHHM was referred to Landscape Designer Laura Feddersen by COGDesign to develop a design pro-bono, a Grassroots grant from the City funded construction, and the Gore Street Garden opened to gardeners in May of 2022. Gore St Garden consists of 24, 4x4 foot raised beds which are allotted singly or in twos, four wheelchair accessible beds, border plantings of blueberries, blackberries and apples, and an education area for programs. During its Rookie Year, the Gore St Garden initially had ten individual gardeners and ten group gardeners, including a childcare group. Given the transient, young adult population on Mission Hill, Group Gardening allowed people to garden even if they couldn’t commit to regular maintenance of a plot or being here for the harvest! The Mission Hill Health Movement learned many lessons during the Gore Street Garden’s Rookie Year. It learned: how to support the ad hoc gardening group so it can be successful; to maintain an active waiting list; and to partner with other sites to run programming rather than trying to do it all itself. Finally, it learned that it’s vital to protect the berry bushes from rabbits with liberal application of cayenne pepper around their bases! The Mission Hill Health Movement wishes to thank the City’s Department of Housing staff, COG Design, and Laura Feddersen for their help overcoming the many challenges in developing the garden. They’re also very grateful to former Mission Hill neighbors, the Boyer Family, who generously supported the development and construction of the Gore Street Garden. |
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Announcements
Thursday, 3/17/2022
Sign-ups for the community garden are now closed, and no further responses will be recorded.
Sign-ups for the community garden are now closed, and no further responses will be recorded.
Monday, 2/14/2022
Access the Brightr Travel site under the Resources tab!
Access the Brightr Travel site under the Resources tab!
Remembering Betty Commerford
Wednesday, 1/19/2022
Mission Hill Health Movement Remembers One of Its Founders, BETTY COMMERFORD (right of photo).
Our friend and neighbor, Betty "Be" Commerford, died suddenly this week at her cabin in New Hampshire. A Mission Hill friend visited her on Monday and, Wednesday, he got a call from her neighbors. When she failed to answer their phone calls, they went to her house and found that she had passed away. Our hearts go out to Betty's friends and family.
The MHHM wants to collect stories of her over 50 years of neighborhood and national activism. She was one of the remaining leaders from that time period. As we lost local leaders, the history of the neighborhood is being rewritten in the way most flattering to the interest of the surviving institutions. One day this Summer, the MHHM wants to have a story telling party to share what we were told.
The picture is Betty and MHHM Exec. Dir. Mary Ann Nelson at the groundbreaking of the Gurney St affordable housing development about 10 years ago. Betty was one of the founders of the Mission Hill Neighborhood Housing Services, the developer of the building.
How do you remember Betty? Respond to our post on Facebook!
Wednesday, 1/19/2022
Mission Hill Health Movement Remembers One of Its Founders, BETTY COMMERFORD (right of photo).
Our friend and neighbor, Betty "Be" Commerford, died suddenly this week at her cabin in New Hampshire. A Mission Hill friend visited her on Monday and, Wednesday, he got a call from her neighbors. When she failed to answer their phone calls, they went to her house and found that she had passed away. Our hearts go out to Betty's friends and family.
The MHHM wants to collect stories of her over 50 years of neighborhood and national activism. She was one of the remaining leaders from that time period. As we lost local leaders, the history of the neighborhood is being rewritten in the way most flattering to the interest of the surviving institutions. One day this Summer, the MHHM wants to have a story telling party to share what we were told.
The picture is Betty and MHHM Exec. Dir. Mary Ann Nelson at the groundbreaking of the Gurney St affordable housing development about 10 years ago. Betty was one of the founders of the Mission Hill Neighborhood Housing Services, the developer of the building.
How do you remember Betty? Respond to our post on Facebook!
Monday, 1/24/2022
Newest arrival for MHHM is intern Benjamin Cook. Benjamin will be creating education programs for MHHM's new community garden, and helping to expand MHHM's social network.
Newest arrival for MHHM is intern Benjamin Cook. Benjamin will be creating education programs for MHHM's new community garden, and helping to expand MHHM's social network.
Current discussions and projects
Get involved!
Check out the "Get Involved" drop down button under "Contact Us!" You can also click "Programs/Events" to see what else is happening.
Feedback for the new website layout is welcome, and you can find that under "Contact Us."
Feedback for the new website layout is welcome, and you can find that under "Contact Us."
