From Vacant Lots to Community Gardens

By Case Wyse
Pathstone Community Improvement of Newburgh
   
From the rubble of vacant, neglected, and under-utilized land, Newburgh Community Gardens in New York are gently picking up steam as raised beds become the signature of cheap, delicious local food. The gardens are made possible by a collaborative effort among Pathstone Community Improvement of Newburgh, the Newburgh City Council, and the hard work of numerous AmeriCorps volunteers and local residents.

Dutch Reformed Church garden

The official process started when Pathstone Community Improvement of Newburgh applied for a grant through the city council.  As part of the application process, soil tests were conducted at each of the potential garden sites. This data was appended to the maps created earlier with the help of the Orange County Office of Planning and Development.  After site selection, public events were held seeking community input and interest.  From this information, a plan detailing the intended owners and stewards of each garden was drawn up and presented to the city. All this work paid off when the Newburg Community Gardens got the green light.     

Recently, Newburgh welcomed the addition of two more public gardens cultivated from the efforts of several dedicated organizations.  The garden at the Dutch Reformed Church is adjacent to the city library and sits before a monolithic set of pillars characteristic of Newburgh’s aging architectural wonders. Immediately following and during the installation of this garden, the community began to take notice and offer assistance. 

Boys at San Miguel work on garden

Though the program is still in its infancy, community enthusiasm continues to encourage other organizations to take responsibility for managing a garden bed.  In the case of San Miguel Academy, a single bed was insufficient. On the corner of Farrington and Lander, a former high-crime risk center in the city, there is now a beautiful series of raised garden beds constructed and maintained by recent graduates from the academy.  These beds offer the unconventional classroom for educating future generations to properly maintain fruits and vegetables. The rising trend towards local food means that developing an urban agriculture skill set could ensure a wholesome meal and job security in the future.

Armory Garden's green team

Along with San Miguel Academy, a number of other community organizations have undertaken the responsibilities gardening. At the Newburgh Armory Unity Center more than 30 garden beds stand ready for the 2013 growing season.  In the two years since its inception, the Armory Garden has hosted everyone from the first-time gardener to the life-long green thumb.  This diverse range of gardeners and organizations provides the social system which underlies the future success of Newburgh’s community gardens.  Plans currently under development include a food dispersal network in which produce from each of the gardens could either be donated to local food pantries or sold at the local farmers market, a city-wide composting program, and a nursery capable of supplying all the vegetable starts necessary for gardeners across Newburgh. 

Las Monjas Community Garden

Our community garden series travels to San Juan, Puerto Rico today. This post was originally published on the Enterprise Community Partners blog, @The Horizon.There were some minor edits to this reposting. Learn about the Enterprise Rose Architectural Fellows Program here. 

By Juan Calaf, Enterprise

Rose Architectural Fellow

Earlier this year ENLACE, a community-based organization in San Juan, Puerto Rico created an organic community garden with the residents of Las Monjas neighborhood. Las Monjas is one of the most densely populated and poorest neighborhoods in Puerto Rico. Las Monjas Community Garden is the only organic community garden in the entire Caño Martin Peña neighborhood comprised of around 27,000 residents. Initially, the residents volunteered their time to clean what was once a vacant neglected lot where illegal dumping occurred. After several months of clean-up and building raised beds the community has now a vibrant and diverse garden producing mostly organic vegetables, lettuces and spices (ie. pumpkin, arugula, basil) for the residents to eat and in some cases to sell at community events.

Last month a community garden organizer from ENLACE, Roberto, asked me if I would help them to plan for the future expansion of the garden, given that they now have a new parcel to the eastern side and to the north of the garden. ENLACE got some funding from the Ford Foundation to build out some structures necessary for the garden to be more self-sustaining. Since then, I have participated in various meetings with the community leaders and garden organizers to come up with a list of priorities and to create a more holistic design for the garden. The group wants to include an outdoor classroom, a larger composting area, more garden beds and a nursery garden area. There are also some improvements planned for the existing fencing around the garden as well as a new gate to provide better access into the garden.

Las Monjas Community Garden

I have been helping with the schematic designs for the second phase of the garden’s design. This phase will also include a rain-water collection cistern connected to a roof, shading devices to minimize wilting from the extreme summer heat and a mechanical composting facility all to make the garden more self-sustaining.
Community gardens like Las Monjas and others around the country serve two vital functions for the community. First, they support food independence by teaching organic gardening practices to youth and families to have their own low-cost alternative to eating local produce. Second, they foster better relationships between neighbors by encouraging strong collaboration and participation which ultimately has a positive overall impact in the neighborhood.

Community Garden Design Meeting Sketches

Want to start a community garden in your neighborhood? Click here

Transforming Neighborhoods with Vision and Partnership

This blog entry shows how gardens are one piece of community transformation, along with other green efforts and a little artistic creativity. This story was originally published on the Leaders for Communities blog here. 

Bernadette Orr, director, 
Community Building & Organizing

Last week I had the good fortune to spend two days visiting with Community Building and Organizing member groups in our Northeast Region.  As with so many “hands-on” experiences, what I expected when I left on the trip was far exceeded by the many insights and lessons learned over the two days.

I started the visit in Philly, where New Kensington CDC (NKCDC) was hosting guests from Argenta CDC North Little Rock, Arkansas.  Mary Beth Bowman, Agenta CDC's executive director, and Shanta Nunn-Baro, their resource development and IDA manager, came up from Little Rock to learn more about what NKCDC has done to “green” their neighborhood.  In particular, they wanted to learn about urban farming – something they hope to replicate back home.

Teens 4 Good mint plant. Teens 14-18 years old
produce about 3000 lbs of food on this lot every year.

We visited a fantastic and productive local farm called Teens 4 Good run by neighborhood youth, a beautiful plant nursery and produce center operated by GreensGrow (“growers of food, flowers, and neighborhoods”), and stayed a while at NKCDC’s own garden center.  Along the route, we passed numerous small lots transformed from abandoned, weedy, problem sites to thriving community gardens. While at the garden center we saw local families coming by to pick up their weekly food shares of fresh produce, as a local chef provided cooking demonstrations and handed out that week’s fresh food recipe.

The weekly farmers market attracts
500-1000 customers each week.

As the day progressed, we slowly realized that, even more than the “green” theme we had come to explore, what we were really learning about was the power of partnerships. Each group brings their own particular expertise to the table and shares a vision of healthy, vibrant communities, and a commitment to neighborhood transformation in partnership with local, resident leadership.  The collective effort brings forth a resulting transformation that is nothing short of magical.  Housing, streets, businesses, art, food, youth, health, education, festivals, community building – everywhere we turned we saw the threads interwoven with impressive results.

This produce for NKCDCs farm to families program is
worth at least twice the $10 charged.

We ended the day back in the office, learning more about how NKCDC’s participation in a project called Sustainable 19125 is moving the neighborhood from the challenges of more than 1000 abandoned lots strewn with trash and debris to Philadelphia’s greenest zip code (click to watch a great video about this work). You can access more photos from the trip on my Twitter account:  @boylstonst.

Coachella Garden Brings Community Together

It's harvest time and community gardens are providing a bounty for people of diverse ages, backgrounds and geographies, so this week we're focusing our blog on a few great stories from these local growing efforts. This story was originally published as an article on the Coachella Unincorporated website. Coachella Unincorporated is a youth media startup in the East Coachella Valley, funded by the Building Healthy Communities Initiative of The California Endowment and operated by New America Media in San Francisco. 

By Johnny Flores
Youth reporter
Coachella Unincorporated

When Hilda Hinojosa’s baby has colic, all she has to do is walk across the parking lot and pick some manzanilla from among the various vegetables, fruits and herbs at Las Casas Apartments Community Garden.

She uses the herb, also known as chamomile, to soothe four-month-old Berenice to sleep.
“I don’t drive, so it’s much easier to come to the garden,” said Hinojosa in Spanish. “It would take me longer to get to the store, and my little girl would still be crying.”

The residents of Las Casas Apartments work together in their community
garden, sharing their bounty with one another and their neighbors. Hilda
Hinojosa (above) grows and shares the manzanilla that she uses to make
tea for her daughter, Berenice. Photo credit: Coachella Unincorporated

Hinojosa has been planting in the community garden ever since moving to Las Casas eight years ago. During that time, she has developed a bond with her fellow community gardeners. The 20 or so active participants tend to their individual crops and share their bounty with one another. Because many are migrant farmworkers, the community gardeners look after each other’s crops when some leave the area to follow the seasonal harvesting work. One active gardener, Jesus Sandoval, even devised an irrigation system that makes the gardening easier for everyone.

Residents who don’t participate in the community gardens are still welcome to pick from them.
“I share my cilantro with everyone,” said Hinojosa, who plants hierba buena (spearmint), onions, nopales, (cactus) and cilantro. She makes salsa from the peppers and tomatoes grown by her neighbors.

Beatriz Gonzalez, who has also been an active community gardener at Las Casas for eight years, shares her corn, radishes, and strawberries. “We share what we plant with whoever needs it,” said Gonzalez, who works in the community garden after a full day of picking grapes in the fields of the Eastern Coachella Valley. “We let them in and give them what they need.”

Residents at Las Casas discuss their garden

Las Casas is comprised of three smaller complexes totaling 180 units of farmworker and family housing. This multi-family project was developed and is owned by NeighborWorks affiliate Coachella Valley Housing Coalition (CVHC), an award-winning non-profit organization dedicated to building low-income housing throughout the region. The organization provides a variety of comprehensive community service programs, such as childcare programs and computer classes, at each of its 31 multi-family complexes. Las Casas is one of five CVHC complexes with a community garden.

“These are farm workers who work to feed the country but don’t have access to food themselves,” said Josseth Mota, community services coordinator for CVHC. “We want to strengthen the community and allow the residents to work for pleasure and benefit outside of their normal job.”

Nadia Villagran, CVHC’s director of communications and operations, affirms that the gardeners are harvesting community along with their crops.

A close-up photo of the Las Casas bounty

“Through these gardens, we hope residents of Las Casas feel a true sense of community,” said Villagran. “In doing this, we want to be able to sustain the community and help those who cannot afford fresh produce to feed their families.”

To learn more about housing opportunities, or find out how you can help, visit www.cvhc.org or call (800) 689-4663.

NextGenCD: Who Am I?

In honor of the upcoming NeighborWorks America Young Professionals symposium, we have collected several blog posts from those under 35 asking their feelings on the meaning of community development. Share your comments on Twitter using #NextGenCD.
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By Sara Varela 
NeighborWorks America
Community Building and Organizing
communications specialist

I decided to title my blog entry “Who Am I” because that was the first question that popped into my mind when I read the prompt. Technically speaking I am over the 35 age limit we use to define ‘young’, but realistically speaking, “young” is a relative term. Plus, even if I am technically not that young any more, as the very famous Colombian song goes… “Yo tambien tuve 20 años” ("I was also 20, once"). So I’d like to share some of my experiences and thoughts about community development.

In 1998 I was a young foreign student who had just arrived from Venezuela with hopes of finding a job, finishing my bachelor’s degree and understanding the American culture a bit better. I remember being in a bus in Manchester, NH and having a Spanish speaking person approach me and engage in conversation. This seemingly random person gave me a referral to a job opening at a great community development financial institution. After I got called for an interview, I reached out to this person again to give him an update. His one piece of advice was: “just make sure you say you like to work with the community”. I wasn’t really sure what he meant by that, but somehow, when the moment was right, during my first interview I said it – and that’s how I landed my first job in community economic development.

Flickr user naillkennedy Creative Commons

This concept of “community” has appealed to me ever since. I actually ended up doing a master's in community economic development, just to make sure I totally understood what this “community” concept was. However, I don’t really think I ever thought about what communities I belonged to, or I came from, or anything, until I started working in community development. I share this because a survey we did in preparation for the NeighborWorks Training Institute (NTI) symposium this Wednesday reflects that a great majority of young professionals currently working in community development stumbled across this line of work by accident, just like I did.

I have been working in this field ever since, and I love it. So, going back to my understanding of community development, I think it is the field that connects the haves with the have-nots, that teaches people to fish for themselves vs. giving them a fish. It is the connection between the corporate and the non-profit world. It attempts to level the playing ground for people living with lower income levels, less education and fewer assets. In my experience, community development is a very rewarding field of work and has been a fantastic discovery for me.

Trying not to lose the forest in the trees

However, in terms of career opportunities it can be challenging sometimes to see the bigger picture. I tend to get lost in the forest; I haven’t been able to see a clear path to career growth. When I worked at the local level, I learned that most organizations doing economic development have a very flat structure, which is great for many things, like: young professionals with a hunger for learning. This gives them the opportunity to take on responsibilities and projects of great importance; On the other hand, flat organizations have very limited growth potential, and young professionals tend to leave after a couple of years when it is apparent the only option for professional growth is to wait for someone in upper management to retire. I started writing this entry before seeing the results of the survey that went out to all the registered participants for the symposium, and I found it very interesting to see many of my feelings and observations reflected there.

Post-its from New Orleans NTI workshop

I will be participating on a panel in the symposium, and will take part in two courses the other days. I am really looking forward to the week ahead, and was very excited when I learned the symposium theme was young professionals, perhaps because I still feel I fit that category. So three cheers for those of us “young people” and the connections we will make, and three cheers for NeighborWorks America for choosing that theme as a focus. It will be interesting to see if more opportunities open up in the field – and within the organizations sending staff – because of the symposium theme and the conversations it will generate.