Team Beargrass Thunder heads over to Portland in Louisville, Kentucky to check out the Louisville Grows homebase at the Healthy House! The Healthy House is an engaging, energy efficient, sustainable community space that connects local residents to health, wellness, and green education. Complete with an art gallery, beehives, a living roof, rain gardens, electric vehicle charging stations, compost areas, and food gardens, we had an amazing time on our tour of the Healthy House. We even got to taste some delicious honey and veggies straight out of the garden!
The Healthy House is a prime example of sustainable living in urban areas. It serves as an accessible place for the local community and offers a wide assortment of services and classes such as art programs, adult and kids holistic cooking classes, gardening classes, tree programs, community yoga & pilates, and more!
You can call the house itself a state of the art sustainable living area. Features such as a "living roof" with two bee hives, rain gardens, vegetable gardens, electric car charging station, communal kitchen, mini splits, and specialized windows and insulation help reduce their carbon footprint as well as serves to educate and provide for the local community. Healthy House welcomes anyone into their open space, and you can reach out to them if you're interested in using the space for hosting a community meeting or event.
The Healthy House serves as Louisville Grows' homebase. Louisville Grows is a small non-profit focused on fostering green and sustainable neighborhoods here in Louisville. Their mission is to grow greener and healthier neighborhoods and to combat the problem that is the heat island effect caused by the reduction of tree canopy within the city.
Our Urban Agriculture program is designed to build capacity in community gardens by providing technical assistance, education and infrastructure. Healthy House programs, workshops and classes center on healthy living, healthy eating, environmental education or environmental equity. We are dedicated to restoring the urban tree canopy and providing environmental education opportunities that will lead to ending health disparities in our community.
Lisa Dettlinger, the Program Director spoke with us about a huge tree planting coming up next month. She says it will be the biggest tree planting they have ever done. They're trying to gather as many volunteers as possible to plant over 200 trees in one day! This would be an amazing accomplishment and have a huge impact on our city. The event will take place on December 7th in the Schnitzelburg/Meriwether neighborhood. Breakfast and lunch will be provided for the volunteers. Check out the event page to learn more and to sign up to help!
Louisville Grows is an awesome project made possible by great people. You can read all about the nonprofit and everything they do for our community on their website at louisvillegrows.org. We had a great time meeting everyone at The Healthy House, and we will certainly be back soon to work together and make our community a better place!
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