Southside Community Land Trust

06/18/2026

Southside Community Land Trust offices will be closed on Friday, June 19 in honor of Juneteenth.

There are celebrations happening across the state to mark this day, from a Black history guided walk with African American Museum of Rhode Island, to the annual Juneteenth Festival at Roger Williams Park Conservancy, and so much more. Consider supporting the many Black-owned local businesses, like D’s Spot and the West African Superstore at 404 Broad Street.

However you recognize this important holiday, we hope you find a way to take part, reflect, or simply enjoy the day with people you love.

This weekend also brings Providence Pride, with New England’s largest LGBTQIA+ PrideFest and Illuminated Night Parade taking place Saturday, June 20, hosted by island pride

06/18/2026

👏 Southside Community Land Trust is among this year’s grantees of the Point32Health Foundation! We’ve built a strong connection to the foundation over many years, because of their ongoing pursuit of improving the lives of older adults. A majority of the gardeners growing across our community gardens are over the age of 55. With this funding, we can continue to support that population with tailored food access programs.

Read more and get to know the other grantees at the link👇

Harvard Pilgrim Health Care + Tufts Health Plan

NEW GRANTS: 21 nonprofit organizations receive grants from Point32Health Foundation, the philanthropic arm of Harvard Pilgrim Health Care and Tufts Health Plan. These general operating grants support nonprofits that improve conditions for older adults and help build thriving, healthier communities for all ages. Meet the grantees here: https://www.point32healthfoundation.org/harvard-pilgrim-health-care-and-tufts-health-plan-supporting-21-organizations-through-its-philanthropic-arm-the-point32health-foundation/

06/18/2026

Last week, we had a very special lunch at Southside Community Land Trust's Healthy Food Hub in South Providence with some guests we're excited to introduce you to!

Margaret, our executive director, cooked up a meal that leaned into the season: stinging nettle soup, gnocchi salad, and a crisp spring cucumber salad, with nettle and mint harvested from City Farm and her own backyard.

Our guests, Dinorah Bites, brought dessert: tres leches and passionfruit custard shots that did not last long at our table. Dinorah Bites is a small, immigrant-owned business specializing in custom cakes, finger foods, and mini desserts, and we have a feeling you're going to want to know their name.

We're not ready to share the full story yet, but an exciting announcement about a new partnership is coming soon. In the meantime, follow along and get to know Dinorah Bites on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dnorahbitesri/

Stay tuned, more to come!

06/13/2026

Mary Worrell believed that gardens are about people. It seems only right that one is now being planted in her memory.

The Mary Worrell Memorial Garden is taking shape near SCLT's Healthy Food Hub and Youth Enterprise Farm in South Providence, honoring a beloved friend who helped shape this organization for over two decades. Mary began working with SCLT in 2003, served on our Board of Directors, and co-chaired the GROW Capital Campaign that brought our 404 Broad Street Healthy Food Hub into being. Her grace, generosity, and unwavering belief in food justice left a mark on everything we do.

The garden is being designed and installed by Roby Newtown, owner of Wild Medicine Gardens and a longtime friend and supporter of SCLT and the work Mary believed in so strongly. Roby also created the native perennial pollinator garden at the Good Earth Garden Center & Farmer Co-Op greenhouse in Cranston, which Mary had the chance to visit during a tour last fall.

That these two women, both so rooted in the soil and in this community, should be connected this way feels like exactly the kind of thing Mary would have loved. Stay tuned for details about a dedication event.

06/11/2026

Southside Community Land Trust's Applegate Garden in South Providence has about two dozen gardeners who tend their plots every season, growing vegetables and herbs for their families, keeping alive the agricultural knowledge they carry, and putting fresh, nutritious food on their tables. It's one of our smaller community gardens, but the people growing there are serious about it.

This spring, a massive tree at the garden started dropping dangerously large branches onto neighboring properties. The tree had long been a headache for shade and pests, but falling limbs are a different category of problem entirely. We worked with all the neighbors to get everyone on board, then brought in a professional crew with some impressive heavy equipment to remove it safely. Applegate came out the other side safer, with a lot more light reaching those beds.

The thing is, none of this was in the budget. SCLT doesn't have a cushion for surprises, and a job that requires closing down a South Providence street and operating a crane the size of a small building is not a cheap one. If you believe in this work, connecting families in South Providence to the land and the food it can grow, we'd be grateful for your support: https://bit.ly/SCLTDonate 💚

06/09/2026

Look 👀 at 🎯 these👆beauties 😍

This is the Plant Sale Committee, the people BEHIND behind the scenes. These are the folks who planted and nurtured 20,000 plant babies, who sourced 2,500 boxes for shoppers to hold their plants, who worried about where volunteers would p*e and what they would eat, and hung posters in the rain. They sweated through a hot weekend in May and they diligently planned for the event starting in January. These are the folks that made the magic of Plant Sale happen!

On Monday night, we gathered again at longtime (and we’re talking 3+ decades!) Plant Sale volunteer and “Perennial Lady” Nancy’s home to look back at the massive success Plant Sale 2026 was. We had record attendance and sales, and it all supports our food access work in RI.

THANKS to every single person who helped make the 34th Annual Rare & Unusual Plant Sale an amazing community gathering! See you next year?

06/08/2026

New event announcement!

If you garden, have young kids, or live in a home built before 1978, this one's for you.

On Monday, June 29, Roots 2 Empower is hosting Dig In: A Soil Safety Workshop for Gardeners & Families right here at Southside Community Land Trust. It's a free, community-centered evening focused on something that doesn't get talked about enough: lead in soil, and what it means for the people growing food and raising families in Providence.

Come learn how lead in soil affects your health, get practical tips for safer gardening, and bring a sample from your yard for free on-the-spot lead screening. No paperwork or cost.

📍 Southside Community Land Trust, 404 Broad Street, Providence
🗓️ Monday, June 29 | 5:00–6:30 PM
🔗 bit.ly/SoilHealthR2E

Presented by Roots 2 Empower, in partnership with Rhode Island Department of Health and Southside Community Land Trust.

06/04/2026

It’s opening day at the Armory Park Farmers Market!

Starting this afternoon and every Thursday through October, SCLT network farmers Ada’s Farm, Charlotte’s Farm, City Farm, Greenleaf Farm, L***a Farm, Marie’s Farm, Natural Foods, Seraphina’s Farm, Teo’s Products, and Zera’s Farm will be at the Dexter Training Grounds from 3-7pm.

These are small-scale farmers and market gardeners who planted the seeds, tended the crops, and will be loading the van this morning. Shopping with them keeps food dollars in the local economy, supports the growers who keep Providence’s food system stocked with fresh, nutritious, and culturally familiar produce, and gets you something far better than anything on a supermarket shelf.

Early June at the market means tender lettuce, arugula, chard, green onions, and fresh herbs including cilantro, parsley, and mint. You may also catch purple asparagus and edible flowers, depending on what’s ready. Plant starts, baby veggie and herb plants ready to take home and grow, will also be on hand. And don’t miss Teo’s Products for the best honey in the state.

Of course, catch these City Farm legends every week!

SNAP/EBT accepted. Farm Fresh RI’s Bonus Bucks program doubles your SNAP dollars on fresh fruits and vegetables. See you at Armory Park!

06/02/2026

If you've walked past 404 Broad Street lately, you may have noticed a new sign by our front door. It's part of a storytelling project by Trinity Square Together, a coalition of organizations, small businesses, faith communities, local government, and neighbors working to invest in this stretch of Upper South Providence and connect it to its own history.

Trinity Square is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and has been one of Providence's most culturally significant corridors for generations. TST brings together the people and organizations who are rooted here to work on streetscape improvements, community events, and projects like these signs, which tell the story of a place that has a lot of story to tell.

SCLT has deep roots here. We started our first community garden in '81 just a couple blocks away. We moved into our rehabbed space at 404 Broad in 2022, and we're proud to be among TST's community partners. City Farm, the 404 Broad Healthy Food Hub, and Youth Enterprise Farm are all right here in this neighborhood.

Come walk Broad Street, find the signs and scan a code. Learn about this place from the people who love it.

06/01/2026

🗣 Last call for applications!

Before we wrap up our search for a Food Access Associate, we have to shout out everyone who liked, shared, and reposted our call for candidates over the past couple of weeks. You helped us connect with some genuinely great applicants so far!

Southside Community Land Trust's Healthy Food Access programs reach thousands of food insecure Rhode Islanders every year, through free farm stands, our VeggieRx program with local healthcare providers, and food access initiatives with community partners across Providence, Pawtucket, Central Falls, Cranston, and Woonsocket. Every week, we work with farmers to deliver hundreds of shares of free, fresh, nutritionally dense, locally grown produce to neighbors who need it. The seasonal Food Access Associate will be right there making it happen.

The position runs July through mid-November, up to 25 hours a week, at $20 to $23 an hour. Bilingual candidates are strongly encouraged to apply. If this sounds like your kind of summer, don't sleep on it!

Full job description and application details at https://bit.ly/FoodAccessAssoc