The City Center Market was awarded the 2022 Community Garden Grant by the South Carolina Association for Community Economic Development (SCACED).
The Cultural Garden of the City Center Market was built to attract a broader and accurate scope of the Florence community. The garden will also be an interactive teaching tool for community members, social clubs, and all Florence School Districts to visit and engage. Any produce grown in the garden will be available at no cost to anyone who wants to harvest it, as the garden will be open to the public.
The market’s focus is to provide a space to share cultural history through its diverse foodways and to open a dialogue about the health benefits of gardening and how vegetables, herbs, and flowers contribute to healthy living.
Alice Caldwell, who has been the Market Attendant for the farmer's market for the last four years, has always been interested in nutrition and food, plants, farming, and other cultures her entire life. She grew fruits, vegetables, and herbs for her friends and family. Although her full-time job as a Nurse Practitioner left little timer, she began to grow vegetables commercially for her husband's market in Florence, Hartsville, and Myrtle Beach.
The majority of plants in the cultural garden resemble those native to Latin America. These plants are grown from seed and carefully tended by Alice and other City Center employees. Each year, our aim with the Cultural Garden is to showcase a distinct culture by cultivating native items representative of that culture.