Edgewater Food Forest

For the 35 years she’s lived in Mattapan, Vivien Morris has centered local health and wellness in her life and work. This focus led her to found the Mattapan Food and Fitness Coalition and the Edgewater Food Forest and to join groups like the Boston Community Health Collaborative as a community resident representative.

As a child, Jessie Dambreville would look out her window at an open lot next door, near the Neponset River in Mattapan. Full of weeds and walnut trees, the space sat empty for years, serving mostly as a shortcut home.