Autauga County Family Support Center Opens Community Garden in Prattville

A new community garden opened at 101 Walker Street in downtown Prattville Wednesday afternoon, giving River Region residents a locally grown food resource rooted in the mission of the Autauga County Family Support Center, which has provided free education and employment services in Autauga County for decades.

The Family Support Center held a ribbon-cutting at 4 p.m., with the Prattville Area Chamber of Commerce promoting the roughly 30-minute ceremony and welcoming the public. The Walker Street location places the garden in the heart of Prattville's civic corridor, near City Hall and the police department, on ground the center has long used as a base for serving the county's most resource-strained families.

The timing is not incidental. One in four children in Alabama lacks consistent access to nutritious food, according to Alabama Public Health's 2024 data, a rate that reflects conditions across communities including Autauga County. Grocery prices, still elevated significantly above pre-2020 levels, continue to compress household budgets that the center's workforce-development, GED, and parent education programs are already designed to strengthen.

The center, a 501(c)3 nonprofit, provides its full slate of services at no cost, including adult education, WorkKeys testing, computer training, fatherhood education, and job-readiness classes. Specific details about community access to garden plots, hours, and participation requirements were not immediately detailed publicly; residents interested in volunteering or getting involved can reach the Prattville Area Chamber at 334-365-7392 for more information.

The garden moves what has historically been a classroom-and-office model into outdoor, hands-on space. Horticulture-based programs have increasingly been linked to workforce pathways in landscaping, food service, and community health, domains that align directly with the center's existing employment focus. For downtown Prattville families within walking distance of Walker Street, it is the most visible expansion of the center's work in recent memory.