3rd Avenue Marketplace launches community garden to fight food insecurity

Volunteers carried veggie starts to 1115 Third Ave. on Saturday as 3rd Avenue Marketplace used a Community Planting Day to turn the Rick Noordam Community Garden into a bigger source of fresh food for Post Falls residents. The garden sits across from Black Bay Park, and the marketplace asked neighbors to help fill the beds from 9 a.m. to noon.

The project is tied directly to food access. 3rd Avenue Marketplace said it is revitalizing 14 existing raised beds for the 2026 growing season and adding 14 more, bringing the total to 28 food bank raised beds. Produce grown there will be cultivated using organic practices and distributed through the marketplace’s food bank, giving the site a clear role beyond beautification.

City officials describe the garden as a place for people who may not have space at home to grow food, learn gardening skills, and connect with neighbors. That makes the project a grassroots answer to a problem many Kootenai County households feel every week, as rising grocery costs make fresh produce harder to stretch. The garden gives volunteers a way to help, families a place to receive food, and newcomers a chance to build ties in a visible public space.

The garden’s name also carries local history. In 2022, the Post Falls City Council unanimously renamed the Post Falls Community Garden the Rick Noordam Community Garden to honor Noordam’s contributions to the city. Noordam died on Feb. 12, 2019, after battling cancer for seven years. He was born March 15, 1947.

The planting day built on work that had already been underway. In 2025, city employees cleaned garden beds, removed weeds and prepared the site for future development, part of a longer effort to turn the space into a demonstration garden and a stronger community resource. The current rollout now gives that work a sharper public purpose: food grown in the garden will help stock the marketplace’s food bank.

3rd Avenue Marketplace moved its food bank and senior services into one location at 1215 E. Third Ave. in spring 2024, with opening day expected April 1. At that time, the Post Falls Food Bank served 3,000 families, and 70 Post Falls seniors received home-delivered meals. The new building includes a 37-foot cooler and a 9,000-square-foot main space, not including a second warehouse floor.

The marketplace says it also provides fresh produce, dairy, meat, nutrition classes and healthy cooking education. The garden extends that mission outdoors, giving Post Falls a local, practical model for strengthening food security one bed at a time.