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Kasandra Ewing helps spread mulch on June 30, 2022. Ewing and volunteers installed a community garden at her home in Morningside. (Cristian ArguetaSoto | Fort Worth Report)
” data-medium-file=”https://fortworthreport.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/CAS_SSCG-13.jpg?fit=300%2C200&ssl=1″ data-large-file=”https://fortworthreport.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/CAS_SSCG-13.jpg?fit=780%2C520&ssl=1″ tabindex=”0″ role=”button”>Kasandra Ewing has never cut ties to her hometown of Fort Worth. Although the 60-year-old has moved to places like Florida and other parts of North Texas, she returned to the Morningside neighborhood after her mother passed away. “She promised us to always keep the house, don’t ever sell it,” Ewing said. Ewing remembered growing up with little access to fresh, healthy produce due to major grocery stores being far from the area. The one major grocery store in Fort Worth’s Southside at the time was 3 miles from Morningside. It was overpriced and a commute for most people, Ewing said. Life expectancy in 76104

Morningside is a neighborhood in the 76104 ZIP code, which a 2019 UT-Southwestern study determined has the lowest life expectancy in Texas. The life expectancy of 66.7 years is about a decade lower than the state average of 76.5.“A lot of the elderly people, they have to get a ride to the store, a lot of them don’t drive,” Ewing said. “We have more grocery stores (now), but you have to look at transportation and age demographic. Most of our elderly are not moving out of the communities. They’re the ones that have transportation issues. They have to pay someone to take them to the grocery store.”One day in 2021, Ewing saw a Facebook post from a friend about a local nonprofit called Southside Community Garden that helped build a garden at the friend’s home. Though she had no prior interest in gardening, Ewing reached out to the organization. Two years after volunteers from the nonprofit installed her garden bed in 2022, she continues to care for her garden, growing fresh produce such as tomatoes, collard greens, cabbages and okra.“It’s not just providing fresh vegetables for the community, but it’s also providing mental stability,” Ewing said. “That’s my meditation in the morning. I go outside and it’s a way for me to meditate. I’m a Virgo, I’m an earth sign, so it’s my way of connecting back with the earth.”Ewing isn’t the only one benefiting from Southside Community Garden, an initiative led by local nonprofit By Any Means 104, which builds gardens for residents living in 76104. Armed with a new $500,000 federal grant, the organization hopes to expand its mission to more residents. Patrice Jones, founder of the initiative, said volunteers go to homes and build garden boxes, teaching residents to grow different fruits and vegetables such as onions, squash, okra, potatoes, cabbages and collard greens — all for free.“I wanted to do something that would be more sustainable,” Jones said. “We currently have 80 families we’re helping grow fruits and vegetables. Our motto is ‘each one, teach one, reach many.’” Southside Community Garden volunteers spread mulch on a garden bed on June 30, 2022. (Cristian ArguetaSoto | Fort Worth Report)76104 is primarily populated by Black and Hispanic populations, with 41% being Hispanic or Latino and 35% being Black. Jones describes the 76104 area as being a food desert — areas where people have limited access to a variety of healthy foods such as fresh fruits and vegetables. Many residents must travel at least 2 miles to visit a major grocery store. Despite 76104 sharing spaces with major hospitals and medical clinics, the medical district and the neighborhoods on the east side are often cut off by Interstate 35. Southside Community Garden’s roots go back to 2019, when Morningside resident Atatiana Jefferson was shot and killed by a Fort Worth police officer in her home. In the wake of the George Floyd murder and the Black Lives Matter movement in 2020, Jones and other community activists organized a mural in Jefferson’s honor at the corner of Evans and East Allen in 76104, a few blocks from her home. During those weeks of creating the mural, Jones realized how difficult it was to find healthy snacks or grocery stores near the area — she had to drive for more than 10 minutes to find food for volunteers. “Our thought process behind it is that we can’t get the city to bring a grocery store to the neighborhood that sells fresh produce, we’ll just bring gardens to the neighborhoods and give people access to that,” Jones said. “In a lot of those communities, there’s a lot of Dollar Trees, Family Dollar and Dollar General owned by the same company, and they sell processed foods and beer and wine, but they don’t sell fruits and vegetables.” Ewing said the garden has strengthened her relationship with her community, allowing her to share the vegetables she grows. “It’s kinda like watching out for your neighbors,” Ewing said. “Even with some of my neighbors that are young, I cook some of the things out of my garden, I’ll fix a plate and take it to my neighbors. Because they’ve never had organic vegetables before, they’ve only had store bought. It’s very satisfying.” Southside Community Garden’s mission caught the attention of U.S. Rep. Marc Veasey, D-Fort Worth, who was invited to a 2021 event that Southside held to teach communities how to grow gardens. “I was just really impressed by the work, the quality of the work, the garden boxes they were putting together in people’s backyards,” Veasey said. U.S. Rep. Marc Veasey speaks at the unveiling of the Lake Como Cemetery historical marker on July 6, 2024. (Alberto Silva Fernandez | Fort Worth Report)Inspired, Veasey added the nonprofit into an application for Congress’ community project funding alongside 14 other applicants. Months later, Southside Community Garden was included in federal legislation that awarded them $500,000 in grant funding. The grant is an important step for the group, as they are looking into buying the building where Jefferson’s mural was painted, Jones said. She hopes to remodel and use the old brick building as a centralized location and office for the nonprofit.Right now, her organization buys materials from local nurseries and spends a lot of money on maintaining gardens, Jones said. “We want to have a center where we’re able to be self-sufficient and we’re able to basically cultivate everything that we need so we can grow our seedlings from seed,” Jones said. “We want to have a greenhouse, we want to have a traditional community garden and we want to cultivate the soil.”The group needs a total of $5.6 million to purchase and revamp the building. To help obtain more funding and grants, Southside plans on using the $500,000 to hire a grant writer to help submit applications. Funds will also go toward continuing to grow gardens and adding additional gardeners to the team. “We’re still looking for investors, for corporations, for the city of Fort Worth, for the county, for anyone who has a passion for helping people live healthier lives and living longer,” Jones said. “Essentially, that’s all we’re wanting to do. Just help people to live longer and provide resources that may have not been provided in the past to communities of color.”Kevin Vu is a recent graduate of the University of Texas at Austin and contributor to the Fort Worth Report.