Urban Life Center
Detroit, MI. 

Teamwork makes the Dream work! Our first team was a group of Metro Detroit high school students who we committed to beautifying our grounds and landscape.

The Urban Life Center (ULC) is our community development center and initiative of Power, Hope, & Grace Bible Church (PHG), Detroit, MI.  The purpose of the ULC is to provide quality social services that are necessary to strengthen the body and mind, encourage self-esteem, foster family values and promote self-sufficiency to families, the underprivileged and youth in the surrounding community. One component of our program is our food and clothing pantry, which allows us to go the extra mile to help our community members make ends meet.

The crops grew so fast! We decided to add a 3rd raised bed.

This year we had the opportunity to build a community garden. The garden helps us increase the amount of fresh produce that we are able to freely distribute to our community members.

We have mobilized our Youth Ministry and young people from our community to build, tend, and harvest our garden. The greatest part of this initiative is to see the young people’s expressions when the harvest is given away to the community. Not only have the youth learned about agriculture they also learned about the importance of giving back to their community.

We had a great time watching the crops grow.

We would like to use the proceeds to help sustain our current garden program. We would like to purchase and build a greenhouse over our raised beds. The majority of our produce are spring and summer crops. However, with a greenhouse we would be able to grow fall crops and extend our harvest and distribution season.

Here’s a food basket we were able to giveaway. Many of the young people were shocked to find out if you pull off a few leaves the crop will grow back.

Our garden has created a lot of excitement for our youth and the greenhouse would help us keep our youth engaged throughout the year.