Partnership with Fork Farms to benefit community
Everyone should have access to fresh food. Indoor hydroponic farming technology helps make that possible. With this technology, anyone can be a farmer, growing food faster in less space and with less water and electricity.
Aspirus Health has partnered with Fork Farms to use hydroponics to grow fresh food within our hospitals to help feed employees and patients and expand community health initiatives. This partnership proved to be an easy, effective way to grow nutritious produce year-round, while also creating an opportunity for engagement in settings like long-term care facilities.
Understanding that food insecurity and lack of access to fresh food spans across the communities we serve, Aspirus Health has worked to provide Flex Farms to multiple community partners, such as schools and food pantries.
One of the most exciting partnerships is housed within the Community Partners Campus in Wausau. The mission of the Community Partners Campus is to provide a single location for the provision of a wide range of human services. The partners located within this space include The Neighbors’ Place, which feeds around 425 families at The Market food pantry each week.
Aspirus Health partnered with Fork Farms to purchase two Green Walls for use within the Community Partners Campus.
Each wall is 9-feet high, 9-feet long and 30-inches wide, and can grow 1,152 plants at one time.
Only one Green Wall was installed, planted and harvested so far. Helping to increase access to fresh produce, it provided 200 pounds of produce during its first harvest.
With the growth cycle being 28 days, community members who access The Neighbors’ Place food pantry will benefit from approximately 13 harvests from each wall per year.
This is one small step in making sure our community has access to fresh, sustainable produce.
Click here to watch WSAW TV-7’s coverage of the Community Partners Campus’ open house on February 1 to see footage of one of the Green Walls.