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Dig It! Community Gardens

Creating opportunities for community enrichment and enhanced social interaction

The Michigan Health Improvement Alliance (MiHIA) Dig It! Community Gardens is an on-going annual project which creates opportunity and community enrichment across MiHIA's 14-counties. Community gardens are created to provide opportunities for physical activity, social interaction, therapy and access to fresh vegetables for residents in the MiHIA region. Additionally, community gardens create opportunities for community members to voluntarily serve and support health priorities of the community. The gardens are developed in collaboration with the entities on which the gardens are provided. Commitment to sustaining their site's garden, through continued programming and appropriately dedicated resource allocation has been given for each of the garden site organizations.

Food and Nutrition Information

Lack of access to fresh fruits and vegetables has been identified as a barrier to healthy eating in our central Michigan region. The USDA defines food insecurity as a “lack of access, at times, to enough food for an active, healthy life for all household members and limited or uncertain availability of nutritionally adequate foods.”  The food insecurity rate is 14.5% for the central Michigan area.  The national benchmark is 1% indicating the work that needs to be done to reach the national standard in our surrounding communities.

Community health improvement plans in our central Michigan region have identified the need to increase the number of community gardens as a key strategy to improve our regional health status. 

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Compared to MI Counties, MiHIA has a value of 14.5% which is in the 2nd worst quartile of regions. Regions in the best 50% have a value lower than 14.2% while regions in the worst 25% have a value higher than 15.3%. Compared to MI Counties, MiHIA has a value of 14.5% which is in the 2nd worst quartile of regions. Regions in the best 50% have a value lower than 14.2% while regions in the worst 25% have a value higher than 15.3%.
Food Insecurity Rate
(Compared to MI Counties)
Compared to the MI Value (83.2%), MiHIA has a value of 70.6% which is lower and worse. Compared to the MI Value (83.2%), MiHIA has a value of 70.6% which is lower and worse.
Access to Exercise Opportunities
(Compared to MI State Value)

Region: MiHIA

Creating Opportunities

A community garden creates volunteer opportunities for individuals to serve and support health priorities for their city. Volunteers will enhance the environment by creating green spaces that add beauty and produce locally-grown food, aiding in the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions by reducing food transportation from farm to fork. 
Each garden site has committed to sustaining their garden through continued programming with the help of appropriately dedicated resources.  

Resources Toolkit

Michigan Health Improvement Alliance