**website is for the park friends group, we don't yet have a dedicated food forest website

Fernhill Park is Philadelphia's 2nd largest city park, and within it are many areas that have been neglected and overgrown with aggressive weeds. In 2021 we began transforming one of these areas into a community "food forest"- in short, a diverse planting of edible plants that seek to mimic a forest ecosystem. Focusing on perennials, we have over a dozen fruits trees, shrubs, berry bushes, herbs, flowers, with many annual vegetables as well.
The food forest has already brought many people in the surrounding community together in a magical way, sparking interest and engagement from all ages and socio economic backgrounds. We have hosted educational activities with children from the neighborhood and 2 different nearby schools, and the diversity (and deliciousness) of what is growing has something to interest anyone.
The mission of the food forest is one of empowerment, health, education, and connection. Many people in our community have little to no access to healthy produce. The benefits of bringing everyone together to grow our own fruits, vegetables and herbs is honestly too long to list in this application, but I hope will be sufficiently self evident.