Walnut Street Garden Fundraiser

A call for community support!

The Dan Schmitt Gift of Music and Education Fund 501c3 is seeking to raise $10,000 in order to preserve the 311 W Walnut St Garden property.

PROJECT GOALS

  • Expand our Kalamazoo River Valley Trail Garden initiative and give it a home base

  • Offer on-site hands-on educational programming for Kalamazoo youth and adults exploring the principles of permaculture and perennials

  • Serve as a free plant nursery and community learning hub, providing plants and resources for residents wanting to start their own home gardens

Donate

PAYPAL

DSGIFTOFMUSIC14@GMAIL.COM

SEND CHECK TO

DAN SCHMITT GIFT OF MUSIC
2239 N FARMERS BLOCK RD
ALLOUEZ, MI 49805

You can also pay using Venmo!

About the Kalamazoo Garden Alliance

In 2017 we started the Kalamazoo Garden Alliance with a mission of cultivating and beautifying often overlooked and underutilized public green spaces. Working together with the Kalamazoo Parks Commission, local businesses and orgs, local plant specialists, and community residents we’ve been able to plant over 100 fruit and nut trees, berry bushes, and herbs along the Kalamazoo River Valley Trail. We’ve had a very high survival rate for these installations, and now, with minimal intervention, the gardens are producing large amounts of free fresh food every year. 

This year, our goal is to create a community plant nursery and education hub in downtown Kalamazoo that will serve as the home base for the trail project as well as a place where youth and adults alike can visit to learn about perennial plants and sustainable, low maintenance gardening techniques. The nursery will also offer free plants and consultations to residents seeking to start their own backyard garden.

We’ve been tending to a small vacant lot in downtown Kalamazoo since 2012, and after years of negotiations with the land owner, we were finally able to get them to consider selling to us. This was a huge hurdle to overcome, but we now need to call on community support to make it all possible. Our small non-profit has committed $8,000 of the $20,000 total to the purchase of this parcel. We’re hopeful that many hands will help lighten the remainder of the financial load.

We strongly believe that public greenspace is essential for more vibrant and healthy individuals and communities. Please consider helping us spread our roots! If you can’t make a financial contribution that’s ok! You can still forward this email to anyone you know who’s interested in supporting youth education, community gardens, native plants, food foraging, or anything in between.