Garden For All

Jill Hoxmeier's face lights up when she talks about food.

Hoxmeier, 26, loves fresh produce. She enjoys cooking with food she has grown herself. And she is passionate about helping other people discover her passion.

Hoxmeier is the community garden project coordinator at Rail Town Gardens, a green development project off Wisconsin Avenue that recently won approval from the Whitefish City Council. Plans at the 3.5-acre development call for commercial space, affordable housing and community gardens open to all Whitefish citizens.

Hoxmeier has been the garden coordinator since she moved to Whitefish from Portland last September. She recently secured $5,000 for the gardens through Avon Products Inc.

Hoxmeier was on a treadmill at The Wave when she saw a brief in a magazine about the Avon Hello Tomorrow Fund. The program awards $5,000 each week to a project, program or idea that seeks to empower women and improve society.

It seemed like a perfect way to get money for Rail Town Gardens community gardens, Hoxmeier said.

The development isn't a nonprofit with 501(c)3 status, she explained, and finding financing for the garden isn't easy, particularly when the development is still in the planning stages.

"It's difficult getting funding when you just have an idea," she said. "I thought I had hit the jackpot. It was perfect.

"To be an individual and propose your idea - it's very rare to get funding that way."

Hoxmeier figured it was a long shot when she applied in March. Even after learning she had been selected as a finalist for the award, she didn't expect to win.

She had read about some of the winning projects, which include money-management classes for women who've been incarcerated, programs to address and combat social stigmas in South Asian communities, and support for widows raising young children.

Learning the community gardens project had been selected as a weekly winner in April was a huge confidence boost, Hoxmeier said.

"I was very surprised. I was just so excited," she said. "It was such an honor. I was humbled.

"I knew in my heart what a community garden can do," she added. "It's awesome that the committee thought my project was worth $5,000."

Hoxmeier never has benefited personally from a community garden. While growing up in Aloha, Ore., outside Portland, her family always had a garden in the back yard.

"That was something I thought was really special," she said. "If you wanted a salad, you went out into the back yard and picked it."

Her appreciation for good, fresh food was solidified during a stint in Guyana with the Peace Corps.

There she saw "how big a deal food can be," she said. She appreciated having fresh fruits and vegetables - particularly when she realized volunteers in other parts of the world weren't so lucky.

Hoxmeier joined the Peace Corps after a job with an automotive company in Portland proved unsatisfactory.

"I had the quintessential cube-life job after college," she said. "But it wasn't enough to get a paycheck. I wanted to feel good about what I was doing."

When the Peace Corps accepted her application, she asked not to be sent anywhere cold.

"I wound up in what I considered maybe the most random of posts." She paused a moment and laughed. "I'm pretty sure I'd heard of Guyana before I went there."

Hoxmeier, a health volunteer, taught life skills and HIV education at a secondary school. After two years in South America, she returned to Portland, which suddenly felt foreign.

"Portland never seemed like a big city to me until I got back from the Peace Corps," she said.

After a month in Oregon, she visited her uncle and aunt, Andy and Terri Feury, in Whitefish in August.

"I was here a week, and I said, 'I've got to move here,'" Hoxmeier said. "I never would have considered living in a small town, but it's exactly what I needed after coming back."

During her visit, her aunt and uncle introduced her to Dan Weinberg, who owns the Rail Town Gardens property. Hoxmeier was interested in the community gardens aspect of the project but assumed Weinberg already had someone to head up the gardens.

He didn't. A week after he offered her the job, Hoxmeier moved to Whitefish.

"I didn't realize how huge the project was," she said. "He gave me an awesome opportunity."

About half an acre at the development has been set aside for community gardens, she said. That land will be rented to community members for a nominal fee - enough to help pay for water and maintenance.

While the gardens will be open to anyone, Hoxmeier anticipates women will use it most.

"I don't think I'm adhering to gender role stereotypes, but I think women will be the primary users," she said.

"I find that to be very empowering for people. … They're growing they're own food, they're feeding their family, they're helping out with what will be tighter and tighter house budgets."

Since it will be Whitefish's first community garden, Hoxmeier doesn't know how busy it will be its first season, which could be as early as next spring. Within a few years, however, she expects the plots will be maxed out.

One of those plots will be Hoxmeier's.

"I'm so excited for opening day of the community gardens," she said. "I hope other people get that excited about cooking with food that you grew yourself."

On the Web:

www.railtowngardens.com

www.avon.com/hellotomorrowfund

Reporter Kristi Albertson may be reached at 758-4438 or by e-mail at kalbertson@dailyinterlake.com.