Anyone who has stuck a seed in the ground has felt the magic of
gardening — that sense of connection with the earth and the
rewards of stewardship. Now gardening activists have taken this
therapeutic relationship to new levels by using gardens to
transform the lives of marginalized groups — the homeless,
prisoners, alienated teens — and are strengthening community and
redefining food policy in the process.
Here are some examples:
- Homeless people tending a vegetable and flower garden in Santa
Cruz, California, gain skills, cash, and as its formerly homeless
director Ray McMinn says, ‘my peace and joy.’ This ‘Community
Supported Agriculture (CSA) project is one of some 500 CSAs
nationwide,’ reports Safe Food News (Summer 1995),
in which consumers pay a yearly amount to farmers who supply them
with fresh produce, herbs, and flowers. - Frequent and fanciful festivals symbolize the goals of Earth
Celebrations, a community effort that’s yielded 50 thriving gardens
in former abandoned lots in Manhattan’s Lower East Side. Creating
the gardens — and fending them off from urbanization — has
encouraged participants to take on other issues, notes founder
Felicia Young in Earth Celebrations’ Homepage. And
the parties, with incredible costuming, puppets, multicultural
dance, theater, music, and ritual, are proof that community
empowerment is enhanced by artful joy, notes High
Performance (Fall 1994). - Teens vie for jobs at garden plots in San Francisco’s public
housing developments, and some pursue college credit in
horticulture classes taught by the project co-sponsor, San
Francisco League of Urban Gardeners (SLUG). Gardening is also a
sought-after work-release activity for some San Francisco
prisoners. - Blossoming community gardens and farmers markets in low-income
neighborhoods make cheap, often organic produce easily available to
those who normally can’t afford it. In Philadelphia, 500 community
gardens produced almost $2 million in fruits and vegetables last
year, notes the
Community Garden Site. As Barbara Ruben reports in
Environmental Action (Summer 1995), these
community gardens not only feed the hungry; they subvert
destructive agricultural practices such as pesticide use and
long-distance transport of food. They’re part of a growing movement
to link farmers, gardeners, environmentalists, and anti-hunger
activists to create and legislate ‘community food
security.
