Community gardens receive funding from a variety of sources and enrich the communities they are located in.

There are many different styles of community gardens, but all community gardens provide gardening opportunities and social benefits to a community. Involvement in a community garden can provide inner-city dwellers with much needed produce, boost social networking within a community or expose children to the disappearing art of self-sustained living according to the Technology for the Poor president Dr. Job Ebenezer. Community gardens exist in many forms: self-sustained gardens, gardens assisted through grants and volunteer programs and gardens developed hand-in-hand with local parks departments. Several community gardens receive private funding as well.

Community-Sustained Gardens
Community-sustained gardens--like Job Ebenezer’s urban container gardens--are usually inexpensive gardens cared for and monetarily funded by the individual community members, though expensive upscale versions of these gardens do exist. Building a container garden requires nothing more than sowing seeds in a child’s wading pool with added drainage holes that is filled with dirt. Dr. Ebenezer utilized these inexpensive community gardens in urban areas in Chicago to prove gardening was accessible for even the very poor.

Non-Profit Organization Assisted Community Gardens
Many non-profit community garden programs have spread across the country. Founded in 1975, the Capital District Community Gardens (CDCG) in upstate New York is one of the oldest. Non-profit garden programs are dedicated to establishing and maintaining the belief that gardening is rewarding. NPO community garden programs develop volunteer bases to care for community gardens, fundraise and obtain available government grant money to fund local community garden programs.

Read more at Suite101: Community Garden Types http://community-gardens.suite101.com/article.cfm/community-garden-types#ixzz0x2Z7KI1g