Greenhouse, Green Cart to bring fresh produce to Staten Island's Mariners Harbor

From Staten Island Advance: STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- There’s a community on Staten Island where residents have to walk miles or hop a bus if they want to buy anything even resembling fresh fruits and vegetables.

There’s a building on Staten Island with glorious rooftop space — featuring breathtaking views of the Manhattan skyline — to which dozens of willing people show up every day, eager to learn and appreciative of putting a few shekels in their pockets.

And there’s a state assemblyman who found a way to connect them.

A $100,000 state grant announced Friday by Assemblyman Matthew Titone (D-North Shore) will go toward the creation of a greenhouse at the Tompkinsville building of On Your Mark Inc. The funding also will pay for a Green Cart to roll through the streets of Mariners Harbor, where On Your Mark’s developmentally disabled clients will sell the produce they grow.

“It’s win, win, win,” said Titone, as he gathered with others associated with the project at
One Your Mark’s building at 476 Victory Blvd. — a space owned for decades by the Jewish Community Center of Staten Island until it was sold about six years ago to the not-for-profit social service agency for people with developmental disabilities.

Titone described the greenhouse proposal as “out-of-the-box thinking” that tackles Mariner Harbor’s long-standing problem of lack of access to fresh fruits and vegetables.

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