Farm grows its healthy food mission

Zenger Farm will expand its acreage and its programs

By Steve Law

The Portland Tribune, Jan 20, 2011, Updated Jan 25, 2011

CHRISTOPHER ONSTOTT / TRIBUNE PHOTO

Sara Cogan harvests winter vegetables at the six-acre Zenger Farm on Southeast Foster Road and 117th Avenue. The farm recently secured a second adjacent parcel of seven acres to expand its community programs.

Portland’s thriving local foods movement often attracts zealots who have enough spare cash to afford spendy organic produce and choice meats.

In contrast, the folks running Zenger Farm are on a mission to spread healthy eating to low-income people and immigrants.

The nonprofit Friends of Zenger Farm operates a six-acre demonstration farm near Southeast Foster Road and 117th Avenue to educate schoolchildren and promote healthy local food and environmental stewardship. The farm, a bit of a jewel on the outer reaches of Southeast Portland, recently secured a second adjacent parcel of seven acres to expand its varied community programs.

In coming months, the blackberry-infested and long-abandoned Furey farmstead will be transformed into the Furey Community Garden, where 30 families of the surrounding Lents and Powellhurst-Gilbert neighborhoods can grow their own food.

In addition, the nonprofit will launch a Community Supported Agriculture or CSA project called Zenger Shares. That will provide baskets of locally grown fresh produce to some 70 families each week during the growing season.

Thus, Friends of Zenger Farm hopes to spread the healthy local food gospel to folks who ordinarily figure they can’t afford it.

“One of the goals is to get food to people who need it in our area,” says Bryan Allan, project manager. “It will be the first (CSA) in the metro area that takes food stamps.”

For about $20 or $25 a week, members will get a week’s worth of vegetables for a family of four, Allan says. The baskets will include bread mixes donated by Clackamas-based Bob’s Red Mill.

“It’s going to be a holistic program for these folks,” Allan says. Friends of Zenger Farm also operates gardening classes, and will encourage community gardeners to rub shoulders with professionals working the nearby farm. The nonprofit also will create a new program called “Healthy Eating on a Budget” for members of Zenger Shares.

The nearest full-service grocery store, he notes, is the Fred Meyer at 82nd and Foster, two miles away.

In keeping with the group’s sustainability focus, the expansion will include new hiking trails and a boardwalk linking the Zenger and Furey farms. The two farms lay on opposite sides of the Springwater Corridor, a bicycle and footpath that stretches from Portland’s Sellwood neighborhood all the way through Gresham to the Boring community.

TRIBUNE PHOTO: CHRISTOPHER ONSTOTT • Bryan Allan, project manager of the nonprofit Friends of Zenger Farm, works on a small harvest of winter vegetables at the farm. His project aims to turn the blackberry-infested Furey farmstead into a community garden where 30 local families can grow their own food.

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