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GrowPittsburgh.org Well, Braddock Farms started in 2007. Grow Pittsburgh was just a couple of years old, as an organization. We were looking for a space where we could do a larger production site, and a town that could benefit from the work that we do. It's this tiny little urban farm surrounded by buildings and traffic and steel mills and warehouses, and, and everything but farms. Our mission is to teach people how to grow food and promote the benefits that gardening brings to the neighborhoods in Pittsburgh and surrounding areas. It's a bit of a Robin Hood scheme: We charge market prices to the restaurants, and then that helps us a little bit be able to offer things of lower prices down here, as we are trying to provide access to locally grown, organically grown, foods. Being able to get those types of foods is a, a right that people have, rather than it being a privilege, and when you're in a place where it's either financially prohibitive or geographically prohibited, that's not right. So that's kind of a, a niche that we're filling by having that stuff in town and getting it to our neighbors at prices that they could afford. It'd be crazy to be down here where we are and people in town not being able to afford it. Being able to sell our produce in the same town that it's grown in, being able to talk to all of our customers at the farm stand, telling them about the, the different and unusual varieties of things that they're buying that they might not have seen before, everything that they can do with the produce. People in Braddock want and deserve healthy, fresh produce as much as anyone else. If you don't have a car, or you're not able to lug six grocery bags on the bus or something, we're happy that we can be here for those folks. I think it's a great way to bring people together. There's great communities that have come out of the gardens that we've helped set up around the county, and then, of course, the, just the health benefits of the food. There's no comparison between homegrown and, you know, large scale, commercial, store-bought food as far as taste and, uh, nutritional content, too. The fresher food is healthier. And if you're eating in season, and the flavor's at its best, nobody likes the hard, white tomato that they get in a salad in January. It's unfortunate that most of our food is better traveled than we are. When I hear, "Oh," like, "such and such produce is kind of small," or, "There's a blemish," it's like, you know, you still taste things with your eyes closed. We have to, uh, we have to reassess what, what is important in the food that we grow. Is it the way that it looks and how large it is, or is it the flavor and the nutritional content? It's not difficult to convert people to eating this way. Usually all it takes is a little bit of exposure, and then stuff they used to eat never tastes good enough again. I would just encourage people to get in touch with me through Grow Pittsburgh, put a group together, come down and see the farm. Come down to workshops that we have here, and just get involved. Get exposed, get excited. Dollar Bank Pittsburgh Regional Showcase Pittsburgh Small Business Local Pittsburgh Farmers Local Pittsburgh Food Southwestern Pennsylvania Pittsburgh Braddock Farms Marshall Hart Fresh Produce Grow Pittsburgh Pittsburgh Community Gardens Fresh Food Shop for Flavor