Urban Acres

Harvesting peanuts with my granddaughter, Annalise.

SOLD OUT: Come buy fresh produce from Urban Acres’ next generation of farmers before it’s gone! Peppers, tomatoes and more.

614 Spring Street

What a wonderful day at Urban Acres and the launch of Springboard Kitchen, in partnership with our family at St. Paul's Episcopal Church. We began the day by showing off the space to the wonderful members of Impact Central Illinois and thanking them for their support early on in the process of starting this commissary kitchen.

We loved meeting so many food entrepreneurs during the open house. The most wonderful thing of all is that we got two kitchen members today!!!

Congratulations and welcome Stoltz's Smoke Shack and The Baked Bee to our neighborhood and the Urban Acres family of dreamers! They signed up today and are taking the next steps in making their food dreams a reality. We will be sure to post and share updates about when you can expect to see them cooking it up in the kitchen.

Finally, thanks to the Illinois Stewardship Alliance for your support and investment for food security and accessibility in our community.

We are truly blessed and thank our friends and family for all of your support in bringing this to fruition.

Come check out the newly finished Springboard Kitchen this Saturday, July 27: 10 am - 12 pm.

SOLD OUT! We have tomatoes! All proceeds go to Eli’s trip to Washington DC.

More sweet corn is available ! Please post here or send me a message. All proceeds to towards Eli’s trip to D.C.

SOLD OUT! Thank you to everyone who came out today!!

Come on down and get your fresh produce while it lasts! (Sunday, July 7)

As life gets more hectic, we’ve found support in our friends and neighbors. The markets will be taken over by Diverse Metamorphosis this year, but will continue to work at bringing commerce and fresh food to the neighborhood. Stop on down and enjoy dinner, or shop, or participate if you have something to sell! Have a great week my friends.

Extremely excited to announce that we have partnered with Urban Acres to continue their farmers market into the future! This small corner market provides Peoria's North end with fresh produce each week grown locally in the neighborhood and around the Peoria area. We hope to host musicians and artists as well in this space and time. If you are interested in performing, vending, or volunteering, please reach out.
We hope to see you on Thursdays!!

So excited to finally bring this concept to fruition. It’s been a long road and we’ve had lots of support from friends and family. A special shout out to St. Paul's Episcopal Church for being our partner in this, and Impact Central Illinois and the IL Dept of Agriculture for the help with the infrastructure. We are truly blessed!

'Ghost kitchen' to open in Peoria's North Valley Peoria food entrepreneur Andres Diaz, co-founder of Urban Acres Gardens, said his new commissary kitchen, which is located in a former medical building at 614 Spring Street, will be known as Springboard Kitchen.

It was a great day in Springfield today.

We are truly blessed with great friends and partners from St. Paul's Episcopal Church in our endeavors to connect people with food in our community. Today, we were awarded one of the inaugural grants for local food infrastructure. The grant will be used to invest in the North Valley and will benefit the entire Peoria community. Thank you to our State Senator Dave Koehler for sponsoring the legislation that funded the grant and all of our friends at the Illinois Stewardship Alliance that brought this opportunity to 18 incredible projects across the state of Illinois.

Congrats to the recipients of the 2024 Local Food Infrastructure Grants! They include:

• Allen's Farm Quality Meats – improve meat processing facility and equipment (Homer)

• Farm-FED Co-op – build out processing infrastructure and retail space for cooperative (Mt. Pulaski)

• DeMange Family Farms – build out a processing, storage, and distribution facility (St. Jacob)

• Spence Farm LLC Down at the Farms – Expand cold storage and distribution capabilities (Fairbury)

• The Flock Farm – Build a USDA poultry processing facility (Anna)

• Eden Place Nature Center Fuller Park Community Development DBA Eden Place – Build a food aggregation facility (Chicago)

• Funks Grove Heritage Fruits & Grains – establish grain milling and processing facility (Shirley)

• Garlic Breath Farm – Improve accessibility to farm stand (Elburn)

• Illinois Country Harvest – establish grain milling and processing facility (Prairie du Rocher)

• Jo Daviess Local Foods – establish a food distribution center (Jo Daviess County)

• Just Roots Chicago – increase cold storage and distribution capabilities (Chicago)

• LEAF Food Hub – increase food hub efficiency and capacity with upgraded equipment (Carterville)

• Living Light Farms – increase cold storage and distribution capacity particularly for meat (Paxton)

• Palomares Social Justice Center – increase access to fresh foods with more cold storage (Rock Island)

• Sola Gratia Farm – building a shared post-harvest processing facility that can help aggregate, store, and distribute food (Urbana)

• Terripin Farms – build out a shared processing, storage, aggregation and distribution facility (Quincy)

• Tulip Tree Gardens Co. – improve delivery capabilities with a new refrigerated vehicle (Beecher)

• Urban Acres – collaborating with St Paul Episcopal Church – build out a shared commissary kitchen (Peoria)

• Urban Growers Collective – increase cold storage and post-harvest processing capacity (Chicago)

A special thank you to the Illinois Department of Agriculture for the financial support that made this possible, the 2024 Local Food Infrastructure Grant Review Committee for their time and dedication, our partner organizations for promotion the Local Food Infrastructure Grant, Alliance members for their ongoing support, and all of the Illinois local food producers and food business creating a healthier, more resilient food system.

Riding in the Mexican Independance Day caravan with the greatest group of employees!

Thank you to our friends at Miranda’s Bella Boutique for organizing such a great event!

Viva Mexico!

Local entrepreneurs finding the great things about Peoria! Check them out and take a tour this fall!

Join us tomorrow 10 am - 2 pm for fresh produce and HONEY! Miss Cindy will also be there with her awesome tie dyes.

The Budweiser Clydesdales are visiting Peoria. Here's where to see them. The Budweiser Clydesdales from Anheuser-Busch are in Peoria, Illinois, as part of St. Jude fundraiser at Walter Brothers Harley-Davidson.

This coming Saturday, August 12, will be our final full market of the season. Join us for produce, honey and tie dyes. We look forward to seeing you Saturday!

Due to the extreme heat, we will not be having a market this Saturday. See you next week!

Friends, due to unplanned events, we don’t have any tacos today at the market. Ms Cindy is here with tye dies and we have some produce available. Thanks for your business and we would still love to see you. Tacos and empanadas will be at the market next weekend.