Sometimes environmental-friendliness requires thinking outside the box. Or even outside the crate. Last year, General Motors took 250 of the steel crates used for shipping engines to the Orion Assembly plant and donated them to various vacant parking lots in Detroit to be turned into raised urban garden beds. This year they donated another 100.
Residents water and otherwise keep up the gardens in exchange for the free food and herbs they are helping to grow. This beautifies their neighborhoods as well as encouraging healthy eating habits and providing food that may not be otherwise affordable or available to them.
This program has nearly doubled from last year, with 2400 plantings of herbs and vegetables. Volunteers from the area schools and youth groups work hard to make this program a success, and they are not alone. Groups such as the non-profit Southwest Detroit Environmental Vision and the garden’s host, the auto supplier Ideal Group, partner with the neighborhoods to keep this program successful.
The non-profit urban farming initiative group, Buckets of Rain, received 460 crate contributions because of this endeavor. Buckets of Rain helps to feed people all over Detroit in various soup kitchens. 1.25 acres of formerly abandoned places are now filled with food and herb plants that when harvested will feed literally thousands of people.
GM also helped Green Garage LLC when it began building a 1000 square-foot rooftop urban garden, RoofTop Farm Detroit LLC. On a weekly basis, this program delivers small vegetables, salad greens, herbs and edible flowers to the Motor City Brewing Works, which is across the street from the garden. GM gave this effort 60 foam sheets to protect the roof from the water used to irrigate the plants in the 90 plastic corrugated containers it also donated.
“Projects like this show how engaged and committed the business community is to Detroit’s transformation and to improving the quality of life of its residents. This project,” said Cindy Pasky, the CEO of Strategic Staffing Solutions and chair of the Downtown Detroit Partnership, “which brings food to the tables of many underprivileged families, is also showing our young people how to take responsibility and helping beautify some of our cities more challenging urban spaces.”
Not only has GM been diligent on helping feed people with these urban gardens, it is also committed to beautifying the Detroit area. GM gave 85 scrap Chevrolet Volt battery covers from Brownstown, MI’s battery lab to the Mary McLeod Bethune Association, a non-profit committed to helping the area’s at-risk youth, to be used as flower pots that are then placed at bus stops and corners all around Detroit.
GM’s recycling program has been successful, as 90% of its corporate waste is currently recycled. 160 of GM’s facilities are completely landfill free!
