Even a mile away from where the Purple Line will make the turn onto Maryland Route 410, people who live in New Carrollton will be feeling the impact of that new light rail line that’s still years away from opening. And, this time, it’s being felt in a positive way.
On Tuesday, the city of New Carrollton received a $3,000 check from the Purple Line Transit Partners. That money will turn Veterans Park, a small patch of grass on Riverdale Road that has markers honoring the city’s veterans, into a “food forest” later this spring.
“That will include fruit trees, nut trees and various kinds of edible plants that will be enhancing the beauty and the work of trying to help out our community,” New Carrollton Mayor Katrina Dodro said.
Plans include pawpaw trees, various berries and other edibles that can be harvested throughout the year.
“As things start to come into bloom or have come into harvesting, we’ll be letting people know through our website that they can come on over,” Dodro said. “Come on out. We hope you grab all of them. We don’t want to leave any for the birds.”
Then, with a laugh, she said, “I guess we can leave a few for the birds. But we do hope that people will come out.”
New Carrollton horticulturist Byron Gwinn said it’ll be easily viewed and accessible.
“There will be like a path walking through, and trees and shrubs planted around, with enough space so that you can see if they’re fruiting at that point in time,” Gwinn said.
This is one of 20 grants that Purple Line Transit Partners have provided through its Beyond the Rails grant program.
“We came up with this Beyond the Rails community grant program as a way to really provide some resources to the localities, to local groups doing good environmental projects, doing good safety projects, school projects — you name it,” said John Undeland, with Purple Line Transit Partners. “Things that really make our place, our community, a better place.”
Every year they’ve increased the number of grants given out to local groups, and he hopes to be able to hand out more grants like this in the future.
“We’ve really been blown away by how many groups across the spectrum are doing so much to make our communities better places to live, work and play,” Undeland said. “And the food forest certainly qualifies.”
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