Volunteers build home gardens for 76104 residents on Fort Worth’s south side
Residents in Fort Worth’s 76104 ZIP code received 10 new home gardens Saturday.
More than 100 volunteers with Blue Zones Project and Southside Community Garden worked to build 10 garden beds at Morningside Middle School and install them at homes throughout the area.
According to the Blue Zones Project — which is run by North Texas Healthy Communities, the outreach arm of Texas Health Resources — volunteers who built the garden beds worked with the homeowners to plant seasonal vegetables, such as broccoli, spinach and kale.
Southside Community Garden is already responsible for building more than 50 backyard gardens for residents in the 76104 area. Saturday’s project also involved volunteers from American Airlines, the University of Texas at Arlington, SteerFW, and Leadership Fort Worth.
After the Star-Telegram published a series of stories in 2020 examining why people in 76104 had the state’s lowest life expectancy, local nonprofit leaders and others were pushed to action.
The series was prompted by a 2019 UT Southwestern study that reported the average resident in the area didn’t live to see their 67th birthday, which is 12 years less than the average Texas resident. The series found the majority of early deaths were in neighborhoods east of I-35 that include majority-Black communities Hillside, Morningside and Historic Southside.
Ironically, the ZIP code takes in Fort Worth’s medical district west of the interstate. The series revealed I-35 was a barrier for Southside residents of color. Many can’t access the area’s healthcare options because of a lack of insurance or transportation or they are not aware of programs available to help. And their neighborhoods don’t include things such as grocery stories, pharmacies and doctor offices.
Since the series published, food drives have been organized, free pop-up clinics have come to the area, and organizations have planted backyard gardens for residents needing access to healthy produce.
