“Decatur’s Kitchen Garden”, located on over an acre of land owned by the United Methodist Children’s Home just outside of the Decatur city limits, plans to break ground next Wednesday morning.

According to a press release put out yesterday…

Decatur’s Kitchen Garden is designed to foster community, offer education about healthy food traditions and growing practices, and enhance biodiversity through cutting-edge sustainable resource management. Through a Global Growers market initiative, good produce will generate supplemental income for community producers when it is distributed directly to DeKalb County residents through local markets, restaurant liaisons, community food co-ops and a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) program.

“The Garden will host more than an acre of urban market garden space, to be cultivated by culturally diverse community producers from our local refugee communities and nearby neighborhoods,” stated Susan Pavlin, Director of Global Growers Network. “A range of annual and perennial foods, with an emphasis on specialty cultural crops, will be grown at this community market garden site,” she continued.

Hands down the most interesting item on tonight’s Decatur City Commission agenda are requests from the Asst. City Manager David Junger regarding the long talked about urban farm on the property of the United Methodist Children’s Home.

For two years, the city has been openly talking about a possible Urban Farm Market on two rare open acres of land owned by the United Methodist Children’s Home, which sits just outside the Decatur city limits.  However, there were many hurdles to overcome.  Who would run such a farm and who would pay for it?

Yet again, it looks like Decatur has found a creative way of bringing parties together to make it a reality.

According to Mr. Junger’s letter – which is on page 33 of the attachments – about a year ago, city staff heard about the urban garden on Sams Street run primarily by refugee women resettled in the United States from Burundi.  (DM first reported on the effort back in June 2010)  The city contacted and met with Refugee Family Services, which runs the Sams Street garden project, who were very excited about the possibilities of the UMCH project and confirmed they had the skills and ability to manage to two acres.

Awesome news! But what about the money?

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Allison points out this write up on Pop Dust…

Lil Jon: Rapper, producer, vocabulary expander, fashion innovator, reality TV show contestant, and now, state-recognized philanthropist. From his work on Season 11 of The Apprentice (also known as Celebrity Apprentice 4), Jonathan Mortimer Smith raised a cool $80,000 for his charity of choice, the United Methodist Children’s Home (UMCH). For his contributions—his “unyielding commitment to raise money in support of children and families” and his “passion for advocacy and outstanding commitment to empowering [the] community,” as the official document states—the county of DeKalb, Georgia has deemed the date of May 24th, 2011 to be “Lil Jon Day”.

Scott Drake also alerts us to AccessAtlanta’s photo gallery of Lil John’s visit to United Methodist Children’s Home in Decatur.

Sounds like Lil’ John’s Celebrity Apprentice team won their challenge last night.  And that means big things for a certain Decatur-based org.  From United Methodist Children’s Home’s Facebook page…

GO LIL JON!!! Thank you Lil Jon, Donald Trump and ACN! $40,000 will have a huge impact in providing safe homes to our children and families. Visit www.umchildrenshome.org to join them in supporting our ministry.