An Introduction to M.O.B.Y.

Welcome to the M.O.B.Y. website. Before

In 2003, Jason O’Brien looked outside his kitchen window and grew tired of living next to a dumpster overflowing with garbage in the vacant lot underneath the Skytrain on Commercial Drive. This vacant lot couldn’t be used for residential or commercial space, but Jason thought it could be used for a project that would bring the neighborhood together and counteract the crime as well as the drug trade that plagued the area.

 


When the city invited submissions for community-orientated projects, Jason gathered petitions and signed up neighbors to help build a community garden. Two years later, MOBY (abbreviated for My Own Back Yard) was given a grant of $93,000 by city of Vancouver to build and complete a community garden on the vacant lot in the 1700 block of East 11th.

Building It

After Today, MOBY is a registered non-profit society and has about 100 members; all of them neighbors who live in the vicinity of Commercial Drive. MOBY has over 40 garden plots and is putting the finishing touches on its newly completed cob shed. Members run workshops throughout the spring, summer and fall and get involved in community projects and events.


The playground and green space was completed on June 6th, 2009. Thank you to the  many organizations came together to make this dream a reality; especially MOSAIC , Let Them Be Kids, The Drive BIA,  First Christian Reformed Church, and the City of Vancouver.
There were large donations made by Capers/Wholefoods and Kool-Aid.

Visitors are welcome; drop by and say hi or just stop to smell the roses!