The Forest Heights neighborhood in Athens is preparing for its annual Blueberry Festival.
The Blueberry Festival is one branch of the Blueberry Project, a neighborhood-wide effort to grow and sustain community blueberry bushes. Bart King is a Forest Heights resident who helped found the project in 2021.
He says he wanted to increase resilience and address food insecurity in his community by growing fruit that anyone in the neighborhood can pick.
“Blueberries aren’t gonna feed everybody, but it’s building community around an idea, around an idea of shared resources,” he says.
King says that after the COVID-19 pandemic, residents of Forest Heights were looking for ways to connect. The neighborhood now supports more than thirty blueberry patches planted around the neighborhood.
The Athens Land Trust, a nonprofit focused on providing affordable housing and protecting Georgia lands, stewards the proceeds from the Blueberry Festival. Donations support efforts to maintain and plant more blueberry bushes.
This year, the festival will feature a kid’s bike race, a cook-off, a concert, and more. The festival will begin at 9:30 on Saturday, May 30th, with events throughout the day.
