Welcome to Campus.

Four acres & unlimited possibilities. Our campus is made for & by our community.

 

Since 2008, our “modern day” community center has hosted residents and visitors from all backgrounds. Our campus facilities include an event center, commercial kitchen, incubator farm, co-working office spaces, bee apiary, sewing studio, edible trails, and community gardens.

Commercial Kitchen

  • Our licensed and state-certified commercial kitchen is available for entrepreneurs to produce value-added food products that can be sold online and through retail and wholesale markets.

  • Learn more about the Kitchen at Grow Benzie.

Event Center

  • Grow Benzie’s Event Center is a 3,000 square foot meeting space used by our community for weddings, potlucks, fundraisers, concerts, meetings and more.

  • Learn more about the Event Center space.

Studio Office

  • Nestled between the Grow Benzie Event Center and Hoop Houses is our 3,200 sqft Studio Office space that is ideal for small organizational meetings, pop-ups, and drop-in co-working.

  • Learn more about the Studio Office.

Sewing Studio

  • One of the first projects Grow Benzie completed when purchasing the abandoned greenhouse nursery in 2008, was converting the 3,200 sqft ranch house into commercial business space.

    Immediately, we converted a spare room downstairs into a fully operational sewing studio. With hundreds of hours of volunteer work, and donations from throughout the community- including 6 new Husqvarna sewing machines donated from the St. Ann’s Church Men’s Club in Frankfort- the dream became a reality.

  • Fiber related workshops have been hosted throughout the years in the Sewing Studio, and Days for Girls started utilizing the work space 2-3 times a week starting in 2016. Shortly thereafter, the FiberShed opened its doors.

    Quilting groups, after school programs, and field trips have all spent time in the Sewing Studio showing us that there is still interest in fiber related skills.

  • To learn more about ongoing workshops, volunteering, or dropping off donations check out the FiberShed page or the Days for Girls page.

Hoop Houses

  • From our earliest days, Grow Benzie has found ways to offer a hand UP to our neighbors, leveraging resources such as our facilities, social capital, and relationships.

    We continue to incubate businesses, programs, and partner organizations with the spark and support each one needs.

    With Grow Benzie's 15,000 sqft greenhouses and growing space, along with our supportive network of farmers and customers, we are able to provide opportunity for apprentice farmers to learn the ins & outs of business without the harsh ups and downs.

  • In 2021, we celebrated our third farmer utilizing Grow Benzie’s hoophouses and infrastructure.

    In 2022-2023, a Community Impact Grant from the United Way of Northwest Michigan assisted with the revitalization of the Southern-most structure. Today, the middle and Northern houses are being reimagined as community spaces.

  • The Incubator Farm and Cold Creek Farms needs a hand from time to time supporting planting, harvesting, and managing old infrastructure. Learn more by visit our volunteer page.

Community Gardens

  • When Grow Benzie was established 14 years ago in 2009, a group of local residents joined together to renovate four acres with a single united vision of creating a beautiful, thriving community garden space.

    Throughout the years, the community gardens have taken many shapes and forms. Staff, interns, and volunteers have transformed the small community garden plot from an open field first into 30 individual plots, then a vegetable garden, and finally into a container garden.

  • Today, the Community Garden project is supported by two MSU Master Gardeners. A 2023 grant from Cherryland Cares is funding soil amendments for educational opportunities for the Benzie Central Interact Club.

  • The Community Gardens are always looking for volunteers to assist with weeding, watering, pruning, trimming, and much, much more. Learn more about volunteer with Grow Benzie.