Kerri Provost is an author, photographer, and budding gardener living in Hartford, Connecticut. She publishes Real Hartford and can be followed on Twitter.

When one thinks of Connecticut, it’s likely that her perception is tainted by pop culture’s portrayal of it, which frequently conflates Fairfield County with all of the remaining areas of the state. Hartford — Connecticut’s capital city — is as far as one can get from the riches of New York City’s suburbs. Hartford has been ranked as the second poorest city in the United States, with nearly 44% of the city’s youth living below the poverty level. This area of concentrated poverty has all of the expected side effects — diabetes, obesity, and other preventable ailments. While it is easier to find a bag of potato chips than it is to purchase an apple, Hartford is not nearly the “food desert” that it is often described as by those whose healthful-eating imagination starts and ends with Whole Foods.

Community Gardens

In its mere 17 square miles, Hartford possesses no fewer than 17 community gardens, most of which are hosted by the Knox Parks Foundation. To use a plot for one season, there is a small fee (around $20), but this amount is waived for those who lack the financial means. Seeds and plants can also be purchased on the cheap through this program and are sometimes even donated.

Beyond fulfilling the need for fresh food, the community gardens live up to the ideals of community.  The Affleck Community Garden, for example, provides a venue for language barriers to be overcome. On any given day, one would encounter English, Spanish, and Somali. Communication between new refugees, immigrants, and lifelong American citizens is a mixture of simple nouns, verbs, gesturing, and smiling. In another environment, these gardeners might have no reason to try to communicate with each other, but here, wanting to lend a shovel or borrow the hose forces the issue. The isolationism imposed by non-shared languages erodes.

Farmers’ Markets

Not everyone can or wants to grow her own food. Others simply have bad growing seasons and need to supplement in other ways. This is where the farmers’ markets come in. When one includes the Connecticut Regional Market, there are farmers’ markets open seven days each week, and there are seven markets across the city. Two areas most needing access to fresh, healthy food, have seen the opening of markets in recent years — Billings Forge Farmers’ Market in Frog Hollow and North End Farmers’ Market in the North East neighborhood. To aid in providing nourishing food to residents, these markets accept food stamps. Beyond the expected lettuce, peppers, basil, and tomatoes, one can also find bicycles, felted wool, natural cleaning products, and art for sale.

Striving for Change in the Land of Steady Habits

It’s not as if Hartford lacks food. It’s here. The problem is the lack of awareness of these options, bundled with the junk food culture. In the poorest neighborhoods, where obesity, hypertension, and diabetes affect a large number of people, it is not uncommon to find billboards advertising alcohol and fast food. Bodegas — small markets typically selling unhealthy snack foods — are plentiful. It’s the attractiveness and availability of poor dietary choices that one must compete with. Grow Hartford, a project of the Hartford Food System (founded in 1978), is one attempt to address this issue. Grow Hartford involves urban youth in the food production process, helping them to learn about agriculture, nutrition, and sustainability. The program has three garden sites, which, according to its website, yielded “6,845 pounds of organically grown fruits and vegetables” by the end of the 2009 season!

In addition to their Grow Hartford project, Hartford Food System has also been pushing city stores to provide healthier foods. Some of the dozens of bodegas participating in this program began with an astounding amount of junk food on their shelves — one store’s groceries were 62% junk food! Each store agreed to shift 5% of its junk food stock to healthier foods. While some residents do their grocery shopping at the Stop & Shop or outside of Hartford, in larger stores like Whole Foods, Big Y, and Trader Joe’s, over a third do not own a car; thus, they are limited to the amount of food they can purchase at a time, forcing them to rely on smaller city markets for all or some of their groceries. Encouraging local shops to carry healthy staple foods like reduced fat milk, whole grain bread, and pasta helps to alleviate the problem that many residents run into when trying to feed themselves and their families.

Though the statistics and a cursory glance might make Hartford appear desperate and hopeless, it is far from truly being that. Between community gardens, farmers’ markets, retail initiatives, and education, the city is on its way to providing healthier, less processed foods for all.