Mt. Hope's Garden on Market Street Has a Full October. Its Bigger Plan Is Still Waiting.

On Wednesday mornings a refrigerated, solar-powered truck pulls up to the Mt. Hope Community Garden at 4261 Market Street. The driver lifts an awning on the side of the truck, and the shelves behind it fill with leafy greens, beets, eggs, avocados, honey, and sometimes kumquats. Civil Eats described that scene in a March 2026 feature on the nonprofit behind it. Six months later the truck still keeps the same Wednesday slot, and the garden around it has one of the busiest Octobers on its calendar.

This fall, Mt. Hope's newest neighborhood services trace back to community nonprofits taking control of specific properties. The garden is the clearest case. Its neighbors' organization bought the land in 2019, and since then the weekly routine has kept running on that land while a much larger plan works through the city.

The land question was settled in 2019

Project New Village grew out of twelve African American-led organizations, according to Civil Eats. The San Diego Voice & Viewpoint reported that the organization was established in 1994, widened its work to food access and health in 2008, and became a 501(c)(3) nonprofit in 2010. The Mt. Hope garden followed in 2011, on one-third of an acre of land leased from the City of San Diego and laid out in 40 beds.

For most community gardens, a lease like that is the weak point. Then in 2019 Project New Village learned the city planned to sell the parcel. The organization borrowed from The Conservation Fund and bought the land in December 2019, which made it the owner of the site it had been renting. The Conservation Fund's project page describes the purchase as securing long-term stewardship of the site.

Owning the land explains the rest of this story. The organization can keep a weekly calendar steady from one season to the next, and it can plan a two-story building on the same site. Co-founder Diane Moss told Civil Eats that Southeastern San Diego has "many fast-food and junk-food establishments, but very few healthy food outlets." Owning the garden lets the organization keep working on that problem without a lease deadline hanging over it.

October at the Mt. Hope garden, day by day

The garden runs on a weekly rhythm with a few dated events added in. Here is what Project New Village has posted for the rest of the fall:

The volunteer hours ask nothing of newcomers. Project New Village's calendar says they are open to any community member, and no equipment or experience is needed. The Saturday workdays are listed as light-duty gardening with a social side, two hours on a weekend morning.

The Wednesday market

The People's Produce Mobile Farmers Market has run since 2022. Voice & Viewpoint's launch report says the kickoff was held at this garden on September 28 of that year. The truck now serves eight locations across Southeastern San Diego, National City, Barrio Logan and Lemon Grove. Project New Village says the model is built to pay local growers and food makers fairly. Mt. Hope is its Wednesday-morning stop. The calendar also lists Champions for Health at this location, offering free health screenings and vaccinations.

Some of what's on the shelves comes from close by. Civil Eats reported that a network of backyard growers donates produce to the truck and to Project New Village's Golden Groceries CSA, a seasonal produce-box subscription. The same feature said the truck helps shoppers stretch their SNAP benefits. If you plan to pay with benefits on a particular Wednesday, check with Project New Village first about how payment works at this stop.

The market's day-to-day costs got help last winter. On December 11, 2025, the San Diego Foundation announced a $250,000 Unity Fund grant to Project New Village to operate its mobile farmers markets.

The Soirée on October 20

The one evening event of the month is the Food Justice Soirée, held Tuesday, October 20, from 6 to 8 p.m. in the garden. Project New Village calls it a fall "friend-raiser" held in observance of National Food Day. The evening includes a garden art show by local artists, food, complimentary drinks with and without alcohol, and live music, all after dark among the beds. Tickets are $25. The organizer hasn't named the artists or musicians yet.

The event has a track record. Project New Village held a 2025 edition on October 21 and put the proceeds toward the People's Produce truck. The Conservation Fund's page also mentions a 2019 Summer Soiree Celebration, the same year the land purchase closed. This year's proceeds go to food-justice work in what the organization calls the Good Food District, according to the ticket page.

What The Village would add, and where it stands

The larger plan for the site is called The Village. Project New Village describes a two-story food hub that would keep the community garden and add:

• A fresh-food market
• Six prepared-food vendor stalls and a covered dining patio
• A commercial kitchen
• A community gathering space
• A second-floor urban-agriculture innovation center with flexible classroom space
• Upstairs space for Project New Village and a mission-aligned business tenant

Moss described the project to Civil Eats as "real community ownership of a physical space and economic resource that contributes to long-term wealth and resilience at the neighborhood level." The cost is about $10 million. A 2023 grant from Alliance Healthcare Foundation added $2 million toward the market, which the plan treats as its centerpiece. The project overview lists M.W. Steele Group for architecture and design, MCM Consulting as construction manager, and Angel City Advisors as financial and real-estate adviser.

As of the most recent reporting this spring, the project was waiting on city construction permits. Civil Eats reported that the organization hoped to start building later in 2026 and open in 2027. The same report said the capital campaign still needed $4 million for construction and operations, and that building in phases could push the schedule back. No groundbreaking has been announced since. The organization's news page through late September lists events and program updates, with no construction milestone. For now, the 2026 start and 2027 opening are goals, not dates.

In the meantime the regular calendar keeps going. The truck still stops on Wednesdays, the workdays are booked into November, and the Soirée is eight days out. Whether The Village gets its permits this year or later, the garden already runs a weekly routine the building would sit on top of.

Down Euclid Avenue, a new walk-in clinic

A short drive from the garden, a property arrangement between two nonprofits has produced a new neighborhood service. On Monday, October 5, Southeastern San Diego Urgent Care began seeing walk-in patients on the first floor of the Joe & Vi Jacobs Center at 404 Euclid Ave. The San Diego Voice & Viewpoint reported that it is the first urgent care facility in Southeastern San Diego. The clinic is open Monday through Friday from noon to 8 p.m., and no appointment is needed.

According to the same report, the clinic has six treatment beds and seven clinical staff, including two registered nurses and three medical assistants. Emergency medicine providers and nurse practitioners treat minor illnesses and injuries. Services include cardiac screening, on-site X-ray and lab testing.

San Ysidro Health runs the clinic. The opening came two years after the Jacobs Center for Neighborhood Innovation announced it would sell the building to San Ysidro Health for a new health hub. A ribbon-cutting is set for Friday, October 23. San Ysidro Health also plans to open its first PACE center, a Program of All-inclusive Care for the Elderly, in the same building in spring 2027. It aims to serve more than 500 seniors in Southeastern San Diego, who now usually travel to the PACE centers in Chula Vista or San Ysidro.

So within a few miles there are two sites where community nonprofits arranged control of the property and set their own timelines. One is already open. The other has its weekly calendar running while it waits on the city. For more on the area's daily rhythms, see our guide to everyday life in Mt. Hope and the Mt. Hope neighborhood page.

Calendars and permit timelines can change, so check the Project New Village listings before you go. If you'd like to talk through how projects like The Village and the new Jacobs Center services may shape the blocks around Market Street, Olga Stevens Group would be glad to share what we're watching. Schedule a private consultation with Olga Stevens Group.