 Gardening the Community
Youth Agriculture Project
A Program of the
Northeast Organic Farming Association/Massachusetts Chapter, Inc.
Gardening the Community is a youth-centered community based urban agriculture project in Springfield, MA.
Through growing organic food and riding bicycles in the city, we introduce and foster principles of sustainable living.
Gardening the Community Program Events and Information:
GTC secures new land:
Land Crisis of 2006:
Who are we?
Gardening the Community (GTC) is a youth-centered community based urban agriculture program in Springfield, MA. We grow organic fruits and vegetables on formerly abandoned lots while learning about and practicing agriculture, environmental stewardship, and community development. Our vision is to help introduce and foster principles of sustainable living through urban agriculture.
What's Our History?
GtC was started in 2002 on a ¼ acre vacant lot on Central Street in Springfield. The land, full of debris, was cleared by the youth and the soil was prepared for growing vegetables. In 2004, the neighborhood council offered the use of ½ acre additional garden space within an established community garden further down Central Street. The youth of the program grew food for market and donation to shelters and each had a plot of their own to bring produce home. In 2005, our garden land was put up for sale for development. We organized the community to try to convince the City to support youth and community gardens. In 2006, we identified new land for our garden through a local business owner. Since then, we have been working with the City to expand the gardening the land and secure gardens in Springfield in the future.
How do we spend our time?
Gardening the Community:
· Employs 12 teenagers each year for spring, summer, and fall
· Grows thousands of pounds of fruits and vegetables on city land
· Sells vegetables at a market stand in the neighborhood as well as at a local restaurant and health food store
· Delivers all produce to market and stores with use of bicycles and bicycle trailers to reduce air pollution and build healthy lifestyle choices
· Integrates rain collection and water conservation methods into our growing practices to reduce our dependence on the City water supply and to practice low-input farming
· Assists in providing vegetables to a local senior center and Springfield businesses
· Starts gardens in resident backyards to build family self-sufficiency and health
· Takes field trips to farms, non-profits, and community groups to deepen knowledge of agriculture and social change
· Hosts groups from around the region to expose youth and adults to the role that urban agriculture can play in community transformation
What are our dreams?
Gardening the Community brings beauty, healthy activity, and good food to Springfield. In addition to our current programming, we hope to:
· Obtain a permanent garden site with an urban agriculture youth center to maximize our impact in the community
· Work with the City to identify land to be put aside permanently for youth and community gardens
· Paint a mural to beautify the wall that provides the backdrop for our garden
· Integrate perennial food producing plants into our garden systems to increase sustainability, conserve water, and prevent erosion
· Design and plant a "rain garden" whose purpose will be to filter rain and run-off through plant root systems
Who helps us make this happen?
Our partners:
· NOFA/Mass staff and Board
· Old Hill Neighborhood Council
· Springfield College Americorps Program
· CISA (Community Involved in Supporting Agriculture)
· American International College
· Parks and Recreation of Springfield
· Mason Square Senior Center
· Local residents and neighbors
Inkind support comes from:
· Brookfield Farm, www.brookfieldfarm.org/
· Old Friends Farm, www.oldfriendsfarm.com/
· Red Fire Farm, www.redfirefarm.homestead.com/files/index.htm
· The City of Springfield
· Mitchell Machine, www.mitchellmachine.com
· Cover Technologies
· Sixteen Acres Garden Center, www.sixteenacresgardencenter.com/
Financial support comes from:
· The Greenleaf Foundation
· Massachusetts Environmental Trust
· LMG Supporting Foundation
· Haymarket People's Fund
· New England Grassroots Environment Fund
· The Open Field Foundation
· Massachusetts Agriculture in the Classroom
· Individual Donors
Gardening the Community secures land in Springfield
Thank you for your overwhelming support during GTC's land crisis that started last fall and has lasted until just
this past week!
A private business owner, Jack Mitchell of Mitchell Machine (a business that has existed in the Mitchell
family for three generations in Maple High Six Corners Neighborhood of Springfield) has agreed to let us use a parcel
of land (approximately 10,000 square feet) adjacent to his building. He says, "Let's try it, I want to help out."
The potential is great - he owns at least another acre and a half all around the building, full sun, hardly landscaped.
Ruby Maddox (GTC's director for 4 years) brought a group from Mt Holyoke to begin prepping the land. Kids from
the street (which on one block hosts 4 abandoned homes) flocked to see what was going on. "It will take a lot
of work to put a garden here," Darien, 9 years old, said. But she stuck around to see it happen. Three
truckloads of compost and soil were delivered yesterday, and today we are beginning to put together the beds.
To read more, check out the front page article on the NOFA January/February newsletter. If you are interested in learning more about the struggle for land, read the articles below
Springfield Puts Second Youth Garden on the Auction Block:
“Gardening the Community” Land Crisis Update
-
The first lot, 488 Central Street, has been gardened by the youth and program
since 2002 and is ¼ acre. It went up for sale by the Springfield Redevelopment
Authority on September 16, 2005. “Gardening the Community” submitted a proposal
on November 16, 2005 to be the chosen developers of this land and to ensure
that it stays in green space dedicated to youth, the community and food
production for the neighborhood. The City will be informing us between
December 26 – January 4 as to whether the committee chose our proposal for the
site.
-
The second lot, 326 Central Street, has been part of the program since 2004 and
is a ½ acre. Previous to our use of the lot, the area was a community garden
for eight years. Presently the land is adjacent to a currently used community
garden space. The two garden areas together equal nearly an acre of farmland.
On November 16, 2005, the City put 326 Central Street up for sale. We are
presently working on our proposal to the City for this site. It is a desirable
development site because of its size and its proximity to other vacant lots. We
know that our quest for this land is even more competitive than for the last.
Our proposal for 326 Central will be submitted on January 11, 2006. We will not
hear from the City about its status until early March 2006.
If you are interested in contributing ideas, time, or funds to
this effort -
Contact “Gardening the Community” Project Coordinator,
Kristin Brennan at brennanstaub@verizon.net
or at 413-782-2136.
Youth protest sale of garden site
The Republican(Springfield, MA)
October 28, 2005
DANIELLE PAINE STAFF The Republican (Springfield, MA)
dpaine@repub.com
4 years of cultivation and an estimated $60,000 in grant money have been
invested in the garden, explained the program director.
SPRINGFIELD - Sixteen-year-old Iptihag Amatul-Wadud doesn't understand why the
city needs to sell off a quarter-acre lot in the Maple High-Six Corners
neighborhood to build a single-family home.
It's where she and a dozen other young people have been toiling each summer for
the past four years, tilling the land to grow vegetables, earning money and
creating green space from what was an eyesore in the midst of their sometimes
troubled neighborhood.
"It's just crazy. There are so many other lots that the city has," said
Amatul-Wadud yesterday during a protest that's pitting young people and
community organizers against the city and its Economic Development Department.
The children gathered vegetables, left over from this year's harvest, while
their parents and dozens of supporters stood with signs outside of the youth
garden project of the Gardening the Community program at 488 Central St.
The protest came as Luis Colon, a project manager for the city's Economic
Development Department, arrived to survey the lot with potential buyers.
Developers have until Nov. 16 to submit proposals for the property, detailing
their plans to build a single-family home there. The proposals will then be
reviewed by a committee, and it will be up to Mayor Charles V. Ryan to choose a
developer to receive the land.
Once filled with illegally dumped trash and furniture, the site has become a
green space for youth and an ally of area soup kitchens that receive most of
the harvest as donations. Four years of cultivation and an estimated $60,000 in
grant money have been invested in the garden, said director Kristin Brennan.
"When we took this over, we changed the look of the neighborhood, and now they
want to take it away from us," said Jalilah Amatul-Wadud, the mother of three
young people involved in the program, including Iptihag.
Although the 10,392-square-foot lot, wedged between a shopping plaza and a
commercial building near the corner of Central and Rifle streets, is owned by
the Springfield Redevelopment Authority, organizers of the nonprofit gardening
program said they have received yearly permission from the Maple High-Six
Corners Neighborhood Council to occupy the space since 2002.
Ryan could not be reached for comment, but an aide, Michelle Webber, said the
mayor is aware of the situation. She declined further comment.
Brennan is submitting a proposal on behalf of the program to buy and maintain
it as a green space, a concept that she believes would be the ideal outcome.
Besides Brennan, only Thomas Rossmassler, the project manager for HAP Inc., a
regional housing partnership, toured the land as a potential bidder. The
request for proposals sets the land's fair market value at $7,500.
Katie L. Stebbins, deputy director of the Economic Development Department, said
her department has a responsibility to sell the land and put it back on the tax
rolls as it has been doing aggressively with lots across the city. Stebbins,
who referred to herself as an advocate for community gardens, said that once a
proposal is accepted, she will meet with the garden program "to discuss other
opportunities."
"Buildable lots in the city are at a premium," Stebbins said. "But there are a
lot of lots that are isolated slivers of land that cannot accommodate a
structure and would be ideal for a garden." Brennan said the garden should
remain where it is because of the immense effort it took to establish it and
its safe location on a main route for school buses, which is also visible
enough to make a positive impact on neighborhood residents.
Moving the garden and its roadside vegetable stand could also affect the
group's sales that now total more than $400 and guarantee the youth a small
stipend for their work. She is encouraging neighborhood residents to contact
the mayor with their own reasons to save the garden.
"This is not just another vacant lot going up for sale. This is part of the
community," said Jonathan Bates, project adviser for the Gardening the
Community program.
Gardening the Community is a youth agriculture program of the Northeast Organic
Farming Association. It also maintains a garden in the vacant lot at 326
Central St. Brennan said she fears that property will also be sold by the
Springfield Redevelopment Authority in the near future.
City Garden Project Takes on the Big Players
by Jonathan von Ranson
[From Dec.-Jan. 2005-06 NOFA/Mass News]
The City of Springfield wasn’t thinking
when it quietly, without notice to its tenants of nearly four years, put the
lot at 488 Central St. up for sale. That act forced Gardening the Community—the
NOFA/Mass youth gardening project in Springfield—directly into the realm of
city politics in October and early November to try to save its garden site from
being sold to developers. Immediately upon learning of the request for
proposals (RFP) by the city redevelopment authority—about three weeks
late—Kristin Brennan, our new GtC coordinator, and a group of concerned
residents mobilized a Brahms symphony of a campaign. Using both publicity and
persuasion, pressure and finesse, they met with city officials, land trust
people and attorneys. They got 100 signatures on a petition by neighborhood
residents, solicited letters of support from local businesses, social action
groups, the NOFA Land Care folks and the NOFA board and mobilized broad press
coverage…all while making the garden program’s own submission to the RFP
process.
That application was handed in Nov. 16. It bid the token sum of $1 for the deed
to the lot, since money wasn’t what the community garden project had to offer.
“Instead,” said Kristin, “our proposal argues that the social and economic
value of the [Gardening the Community] program is worth more to the City than
the dollar value of the land for a single-family home.”
Springfield Mayor Charles V. Ryan, who was running during much of this time for
reelection, and who not long ago took over a relatively disorganized and
corrupt government, refused requests by the youths to meet with them. In
fairness though, commented Kristin, “He has responded to each communication
we’ve made.” She senses “an urge for integrity in the RFP process,” which
forced the apples-and-oranges comparisons the redevelopment authority may have
to make between a proposal for a single-family home sandwiched between two
slightly decrepit industrial buildings…and the community garden. “My greatest
hope is that we will be the only proposal for that site,” Kristin said. “A
non-profit housing group has withdrawn its bid in response to our desire for
the lot.”
The lot is owned by the city redevelopment authority, but Gardening the
Community has received yearly permission from the Maple High-Six Corners
Neighborhood Council to occupy the space since 2002. This group is split in its
support for the garden versus new housing. One explanation is about
appearances. Until now, the garden program hasn’t focused on aesthetics so much
as experience for teenagers.
The NOFA/Gardening the Community proposal is basically to protect the lot as
green space. It promises certain aesthetic improvements like attractive fencing
and a sign explaining the garden. “This puts a bit more pressure on our
fundraising,” said Kristin. “Since we have been focusing on this organizing, we
are now in need of getting back to building our budget for the year.”
Even if the proposal falls through, Kristin says the fight has given her program
visibility, and leverage with the City. She is confident another lot would be
found for the program.
For more information about the program, or to find out how you can get involved with us please contact:
GTC Program Coordinator, Kristin Brennan, brennanstaub@verizon.net
This page was last modified on January 27, 2008 at 10:59:08 AM.
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