Friday community leaders will come together to christen a garden in a city park.

St. Louis Mayor Francis Slay along with Alderman Jeffery Boyd, State Rep. Talib El Amin and St. Louis Rams Linebacker Will Witherspoon will kick-off National Gardening Month with students from the Hip-Hop Health Initiative.

Together they will take part in a groundbreaking ceremony and ribbon cutting in Barrett Brothers Park at Goodfellow and St. Louis Avenue at 11 a.m. Friday.

Students from Ford, Gundlach and Mitchell elementary schools in North St. Louis will take part.

The event is in conjunction with HopeBuild, a St. Louis organization working with underserved youth, promoting healthy lifestyles and the Urban Farmers of Detroit.

Hopebuild is part of the Urban Farmers program.

This latest urban garden will be part of four other “Garden of Hope” projects in the city where residents use green spaces to grow produce. Two of the gardens are in North St. Louis and two are in South St. Louis.

HopeBuild also runs the “Garden of Eden,” three-community based produce markets run by volunteers.

Slay and others will be on hand to speak about the “importance of community school gardens and their Holistic benefits.”

The Hip-Hop Health Initiative is part of a Mark Twain Resource Center program and is funded by the after-school program ARCHS.