Good food and healthy lifestyles are top priorities for a partnership with Gaston County, born from a collaboration between North Carolina State University and North Carolina A&T University.
“We’re just trying to teach the community to be careful about where the food they eat comes from,” said David Fogarty, director of the Gaston County Center for the North Carolina Cooperative Extension.
The center leverages university research from both universities’ Colleges of Agriculture and Life Sciences to solve locally defined problems, Fogarty said.
“University collaboration has been around for a long time, and Gaston County was one of the first counties to extend a partnership out of it,” said Fogarty. “We have a number of different programs in agriculture, home care, lawn care and nutrition, but the goal is to help people live healthier lives.”
Located on 1303 Dallas Cherryville Highway across from Walmart, the center has its hand in many pots promoting nutrition, wellness, and food safety programs.
Community members can garden and meet new people at Rotary Community Garden on Franklin Boulevard and Highland Community Garden on York Street.
“Right now we have our summer things in our gardens like our green beans, peppers, pumpkins, cucumbers, tomatoes and okra,” said Fogarty. “We’re about to transition to our fall cabbage, kale, and broccoli.”
The center has other gardens similar to the Gastonia sites between Belmont and Mount Holly, run by local organizations and churches.
In addition to gardening, culinary workshops are a large part of the centre’s program held at Pleasant Ridge, Sadler, Carr, Woodhill, Bessemer City Central, and Rankin elementary schools.
“We want to teach people about food systems and all the things that affect food systems, from the soil where food grows to understanding how to rearrange your garden between seasons,” said Fogarty.
“In our“ Healthy Harvest ”program that we had over the summer, we taught people to cook and live for four weeks at the Lucile Tatum Center,” said Marcus Cyprian, the school garden coordinator.
Cyprian taught a variety of meals each week, including fried vegetable rice, vegetable egg rolls, and teriyaki chicken.
“When children get older, they don’t try other foods because they don’t know how to prepare them,” says Cyprian. “That takes away that excuse.”
The organization also works with the local farmers market in Gastonia to issue food permits and ensure participants grow safe food.
Fogarty says the center is involved in so many projects, but many only know the organization because of its lawn care hotline.
“We get a lot of calls from people when there is a problem like their trees drying up or their peppers dying, but there is so much more,” said Fogarty. “We have pumpkin festivals, exercise programs, learning how to make fall dishes, and lots of other options.”
“Overall, we want to help the community live healthy lives,” said Fogarty.
On the centre’s website, residents can reach out to anyone involved in various projects to get involved.
The organization has been made possible as an expansion since 1914 through the joint efforts of North Carolina State University and North Carolina A&T University.
The partnership with Gaston County has existed for more than 40 years, according to Fogarty, who has been in his position for more than 20 years.
“We need to involve the cooperative in our efforts for the city to keep the community healthy,” said Donyel Barber, a volunteer at the Rotary Community Garden.
You can reach Janiya Winchester at 704-869-1842 or jwinchester@gannett.com
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