Knitting Mill Creek Community Garden

Have a hankering for home-grown tomatoes, cucumbers, and squash?

If a veggie patch isn’t possible in your own yard, rent a plot at the award-winning Knitting Mill Creek Community Garden, managed by the Colonial Place & Riverview Civic League and our Community Garden Chairs, Kim and Mitch Swecker, located at the end of Mayflower Road between Georgia and Michigan Avenues, behind Fellini’s.

KMC Community Garden Wins City of Norfolk’s “COOL” Award (June 2010)

Knitting Mill Creek Community Garden was voted one of Norfolk’s top five citizen-directed neighborhood improvement projects, earning the city’s COOL Award.

COOL, which stands for Civic Opportunity and Outstanding Leadership, is a recognition program established by Norfolk’s Bureau of Community Outreach that honors grassroots projects started by residents to improve the quality of life in their neighborhoods.

Selected with input from community and agency stakeholders, the Knitting Mill Creek Community Garden won the award because of its conversion and ongoing maintenance of a once-vacant, trash-filled lot in Colonial Place into public green space and communal and personal garden plots.

The COOL award is presented based on the following criteria: residents working together as volunteers to improve the community; encouraging individual and community responsibility for the neighborhood; an increased awareness of the importance of enhancing the quality of life in Norfolk through neighborhood programs, events or projects; and the promotion of neighborhood unity and significant impact on neighborhood communication, interaction, and cooperation.

Other citizen-led projects to receive COOL honors include Fairmount Park Civic League’s beautification committee and neighborhood watch program; the Ballentine Bark Park, a dog park initiated by residents of the Ballentine Park neighborhood; the Lafayette Wetlands Partnership, a citizen-based group with the mission of preserving an urban wetland along the Lafayette River; and Art/Everywhere, in which empty storefront windows along Granby Street were filled with various art media including sculpture, paintings, and photography. Congratulations to KMC gardeners and supporters for this well-deserved recognition of their efforts and dedication.

On May 6, 2000, the Knitting Mill Creek Community Garden was officially dedicated. Mayor Paul Fraim and Senator Yvonne Miller joined Becky Kiser, the motivating force behind this project, to plant two fruit trees near the entrance to the garden, which is located in the Mayflower Road paper street behind Fellini’s on Colley Avenue.

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