The Florida Keys Community Center is a 501c3 not for profit corporation run out of the The Lagoon on Grassy Key. Supported through grants, responsibly rendered services, and community contributions, the Florida Keys Community Center runs a series of campaigns that help support a variety of needs around Grassy Key and its surrounding island communities.
Each campaign is operated with a set schedule or in perpetuity as a service for the community or to local businesses and residences. Below you will find a list of currently completed or ongoing campaigns that have been put together since we were founded post Hurricane Irma.
In times of prosperity, it is our mission to contribute to the arts, culture, education, sustainability, and environment in our local community. In times of distress, we are certified insured and prepared to help return normalcy to Grassy Key and our surrounding island communities and governments.
Grassy Grown
Operating 3 small farms and over a dozen hydroponic produce gardens, the Grassy Grown program is supported by a variety of local businesses to create jobs and localized food sources. Herbs, vegetables, flowers, and a variety of grown goods are produced, harvested, processed, and consumed all here on Grassy Key. See our 3 Farms below!
Grassy Gardens
Crain St Grove
Located at one of our employee housing properties, the Crain Street Grove is a 1/4 acre raised bed farm sitting 8 feet above sea level. Using a variety of techniques from syntropic farming and permaculture, this garden is primarily comprised of a variety of bananas and plantains interplanted with a number of tropical fruit trees and understory perennials, vegetables, and herbs. This is a production oriented garden that provides for both Bongos Cafe at The Lagoon and the Barrel and Bale Cabana Bar at Grassy Flats Resort.
The Lagoon Grove
The Lagoon Grove is the biggest of our Grassy Gardens. Located on a 49 acre property that was once scarified for a commercial industrial fish farm, this garden is now a full-scale accredited botanical garden that mixes a variety of agroforestry, ethnobotany, and native habitat management. The Lagoon Grove features a half mile loop around the former fish farm where different coastal regions from around the world have been planted to study changes in coastal habitats, such as sea level rise, erosion, and tolerances to the harsh conditions that the territory brings. The lagoon loop is also interplanted with a series of statues, sculptures, art installations, and informational signs.
The agroforestry garden is located between the old laboratory turned surf shop, a food garden, and a small artisan village. A diverse interactive garden sprawls across roughly 1/2 an acre, where visitors can take tours and learn about the different edible, fruiting, and functional plants that grow in the Florida Keys. This organic food forest is almost a decade old, and is intertwined with an upland hammock zone featuring mature native thatch palms and tropical hardwoods. Stop by Bongos for a fresh meal served from the plants and fruits that grow right next to it!
The crown jewel of this garden is the 30 acres of pristine coastal habitat that is left to thrive in all its natural glory. This portion is not open to the public for conservation purposes, but will feature an observation tower to view the canopy from above, as well as a coastal trail seasonally available to visitors to help clean marine plastics, debris, and prevent the intrusion of exotic invasives. Natural land in the Florida Keys has become increasingly scarce with development and tourism, so while we want locals and visitors to be able to enjoy this part of nature’s garden, we want to do our best to allow it to be in its natural state for the preservation of Flora and Fauna.
The Beach Grove
The Beach Grove is located at Grassy Flats Resort and is the most refined of our gardens. As a hotel landscape, the aesthetic value of this garden is certainly prioritized. However, as a sustainable resort, Grassy Flats works with the Grassy Grown campaign to ensure that the grounds management is done with the utmost respect for the environment.
As a member of our composting program, seaweed is harvested from the shore and returned as composted dirt in the garden beds. Seaweed-based compost teas are brewed to fertilize the property instead of phosphate and heavy nitrogen fertilizers that plague Florida waterways and our oceans.
Many plants in the beach grove are grown and harvested in a closed loop circuit. From cut flowers in public spaces, to fresh herbs and fruits in cocktails, to luffa gourds in the kitchens and showers of the rooms, much of the landscape grown for the aesthetic value for our guests is also used functionally in the business. This is the goal of the Grassy Grown campaign, to help businesses and locals lessen their footprint by locally growing and producing many of the commodities needed on a daily basis.
Operation Wildflower
Many of our open spaces are owned and maintained by the Department of Transportation on drainage areas that send storm water directly into the Gulf of Mexico or the Atlantic Ocean. Operation Wildflower works on private frontages and on the fringes of DOT right of ways to reseed native wildflowers that are often eradicated by DOT grasses and heavy usage of Glyphosate which drains directly into our surrounding wetlands and waters. Operation Wildflower has planted over 5000 native wildflowers since 2017 and is working to regrow the native habitat that is so desperately needed by our pollinators and native fauna. Contact us for seeds, cuttings, or a location in the Florida Keys where you would like to see habitat restoration.
Florida Keys Composting
Land is such a scarce commodity in the Florida Keys, so to create a large scale composting operation there are very few suitable locations outside of the already burdened waste transfer station. Grassy Key Adventure Park has a small materials yard that is used during times of prosperity for a community composting program and in times of distress as a debris reduction and sorting site. Florida Keys Composting collects pre-consumer organic waste, municipal organic waste such as mulch and tree debris, and sea weed from several local beaches that are contracted to be cleaned. With the sensitivity of our local turtle beaches and costal environments, Florida Keys Composting even purchased its own tractor and associated licenses to safely and sustainably clean our beaches of excess seaweed from nutrient blooms and coastal trash. This material is mixed with the other community debris to create a commercial grade organic compost derived from all local byproducts. To purchase compost, request a beach cleaning service, or join the action by dropping your own compost. Please contact Grassy Key Adventure Park and ask for TK or Matt for more information!
Grassy Key The Place to Be!
A small business support group that works with locally owned mom and pop businesses on Grassy Key to create a sustainable business environment that brings economic and social prosperity to the residents visitors and business owners of Grassy Key. Many corporate interests have consolidated mom and pop businesses into mega resorts and hotels, outsourcing local jobs to contract workers, foreign workers, or the lowest bidder. Our mission is to support local businesses through marketing, media, art, and community participation.
Cane Crusaders
With an arsenal of machinery utilized in our times of prosperity for landscaping, gardening, and composting, the Florida Keys Community Center has the means to help expedite the return to normalcy during times of distress and turmoil after hurricanes. As a registered debris reduction site in the City of Marathon, The Florida Keys Community Center employs local displaced workers after hurricanes to fairly and safely restore normalcy in the local communities. Price gouging, illegal and unqualified contracting, and illegal dumping usually run rampant after large hurricanes. Our team works tirelessly to keep government aid funding circulating in our community where it is needed most and works to restore our local properties and communities with the care that only comes from a group that continues to live there after the clean up is completed. If you would like to join the cause, donate, or contribute resources please contact Matt at 305-570-9289.
The Lagoon Saloon
Surf Sail Swim and Swill
A surf shoppe in a place with no waves! Boardsports, Bikinis, Arts and Crafts. An eclectic mix of island goods come grab a pint and shop for tropical treasures! Kite, Wake, Foil, Paddle, Water ware and local goods & crafts!