The NativeFresh greenhouse behind the Weaver Center for Community Outreach.
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Fresh food, hands-on training, and off-grid innovation in downtown Jacksonville. Located behind the Weaver Center, NativeFresh is a working aquaponics greenhouse where we grow produce, train participants, and prepare partners across the country to launch food-production models in their own communities.
The NativeFresh greenhouse behind the Weaver Center for Community Outreach.
NativeFresh opened in 2017 as a commercial aquaponics farm built to produce, teach, and learn. Over the years, it has introduced thousands of people to aquaponics while giving us the opportunity to test different growing methods, training approaches, and operating models.
In 2024, we rebuilt it from the ground up, applying those lessons to create an engineered greenhouse that is standardized, efficient, and powered completely off the grid.
Inside, aquaponics and hydroponics come together through our Optiponics system, where fish, water, plants, filtration, and technology work as one connected model. Sensors monitor the system around the clock, while advanced filtration helps keep the water clean, balanced, and productive.
Every component is intentional, creating a facility that produces fresh food, supports hands-on learning, strengthens workforce training, and can be replicated in communities across the country.
Certified
NativeFresh holds USDA Harmonized GAP certification, a recognized federal food-safety standard.
NativeFresh is both a community training site and the central hub for the food-production systems we help partners launch. Local participants gain the technical skills needed to operate an aquaponics greenhouse while also building the professional skills needed to succeed in the workplace.
Partner organizations also train at the facility on a working model of the system they will operate in their own communities. When they leave, they are not starting from scratch. They return with hands-on experience, practical confidence, and a clear understanding of how to operate the farm they will help lead.
Built into every system
Three system sizes
NativeFresh is a Model 1. Partners size to the community they serve.
Become a partner NativeFresh grows behind the Weaver Center for Community Outreach in downtown Jacksonville.
Tower culture growing
Hands-on training
Tending the beds
Advanced filtration
Raising tilapia
Behind the Weaver CenterYour gift goes to work fast. It pays a teenager for a summer of real work. It stocks a greenhouse. It puts an adult through job training. Tell us your name and we will tell you exactly where it went.