Janus Youth Programs, Inc.
Tera Couchman
Program Supervisor
707 NE Couch St.
Portland, OR 97232-2922
Tel: 503-233-6090
Fax: 503-233-6093
E-mail: feedback@jyp.org
Website: www.jyp.org
"Roots in the community: Gardens get credit for bringing residents together, decreasing crime"
By Ben Jacklet; Issue Date: May 27, 2003; The Tribune
Angela Martin never had a chance to do much gardening.The opportunity wasn't there for the 31-year-old single mom and neither was the space. Now she's growing mustard greens and onions and fava beans, digging out weeds with her neighbors and putting fresh vegetables on the table for her three young kids - with their help. "My kids didn't know anything about gardening," Martin says. "They never had the opportunity. They've learned a whole lot since we started up the gardens." Three communal gardens have sprouted up at the St. Johns Woods Apartments during the last two years, and they are winning praise for bringing the local community closer together while contributing to a drop in violence and vandalism.
Jennifer Sauer, manager of the 124-unit public housing complex, calls the gardens "a safe place where people can get together on neutral ground and get to know each other. People feel secure there, whereas they may not have gone out of their apartments much before."
Sauer says she's noticed a big drop in property crimes at the apartment complex. "These same kids that had been giving me trouble before the gardens came have become the most involved in the project," she says. "They love the gardens and they protect them."
The low-income residents of St. Johns Woods designed and planted the three 2,500-square-foot community gardens. One garden is for adults, one is for kids and the third is for the elderly, who get help with the heavy work from the apartment's adolescents.
The adolescents hope to start selling their extra produce this summer at a weekly farmers market in the South Park Blocks. The project is funded through a $125,000 food security grant from the US Department of Agriculture. The goal is to increase food security and economic opportunities for low-income people, explains program supervisor Tera Couchman of the Portland-based nonprofit Janus Youth Programs Inc. But the impact of the gardens goes beyond those goals, Couchman says. "These gardens get people together," she says. "They break down racial and cultural tensions. And they help low-income people to be self-sufficient. The difference between picking up your emergency food box and growing your own produce can be the difference between shame and pride."
Connection to the land
With its ample rain, bright summers and overall green ethic, Portland can be a Mecca for gardening. But that doesn't always hold true in low-income dwellings, where people tend to have less access to good soil. Couchman says that being isolated from the earth and its bounty can be particularly hard on the many political refugees who come from agrarian cultures to resettle in Portland's public housing projects.
Shole Abuna knows that feeling. Abuna says one of the things he missed most, after his journey from a Kenyan refugee camp to Portland, was his roots. Abuna grew up in Ethiopia, a member of that nation's largely disempowered Oromo ethnic majority. Like many African refugees who end up in urban America, Abuna felt isolated from his heritage here. He has adapted in Portland, mastering English, finding a hotel job and enrolling in community college classes. But the transition has not been easy and Abuna says that for those older than him, it can be impossible. "America is good for young people," Abuna says. "For the elders (who come as refugees) it's no good. They aren't used to the family not being together. They aren't used to not being able to plant their own gardens. They don't speak English. They don't want to stay here, but they can't leave." Those elders can gain a lot from community gardens such as the ones at St. Johns Woods, Abuna says. So can the apartment's youths, who struggle with their own form of isolation. Abuna volunteers frequently at the gardens, serving as a mentor to teenagers at St. Johns Woods. This summer he plans to build a traditional African hut near the gardens, to shelter the gardeners from the sun and rain.
For additional information contact Ben Jacklet at the Portland Tribune.
Just Food
Jacquie Berger
Executive Director
210 East 51st Street
New York, NY 10022-6501
Tel: 212-645-9880
Fax: 212-645-9881
Email: info@justfood.org
Website: www.justfood.org
Preventing hunger through building self-reliance and by helping community members gain control over their own destiny are two of the key benefits that Community Food Projects such as Just Foods The City Farms Project provide. In 1997, Just Food, Inc. received a Community Food Project award of $198,000 over three years to improve the availability of fresh food in low-income neighborhoods by establishing a network of urban farms that contribute to a self-sustaining local food system. The lack of community food self-reliance is evident in many New York neighborhoods, where poverty levels run high and few outlets with healthful, affordable food exist. Steep housing costs in New York City present additional challenges to people in low-wage jobs and those trying to transition out of welfare and into paid employment. These conditions are increasing pressure on emergency food providers, which have grown to serve 3.9 million meals per month to more than 500,000 individuals. These food pantries and soup kitchens are important in providing immediate hunger relief but are not a long-term solution to hunger.
Community gardens can provide an important measure of self-reliance for low-income urbanites. Karen Washington, a leading community activist and gardener with the Garden of Happiness in the Bronx, said: We are proud of the vegetables we grow. We know where they come from and they dont contain chemicals. We dont have to depend on supermarkets to decide on what they want to distribute to us. The produce in our neighborhood grocery stores is second class anyway.
The USDA CFP grant helped Just Food to coordinate and provide technical assistance in production and marketing to community gardeners in low-income NYC neighborhoods. Just Food organized workshops on such topics as organic gardening, composting, irrigation, food preservation, harvest record keeping, soil testing, organic pest management and open space preservation. During the grant period, The City Farms also organized conferences, developed written resources and worked to link emergency food providers with sources of garden produce. Through The City Farms, Just Food built a network of 15 demonstration gardens located in all five boroughs. Gardeners have been able to increase their skills through workshops and by learning from each other. In 1999, demonstration gardens produced close to 8,000 pounds of produce for the gardeners families and neighbors, soup kitchens and food pantries, and to sell at farm stands. Perhaps even more importantly, many participating gardeners now see themselves as active participants working to build a more just and sustainable food system.
The City Farms is now expanding its reach to the 700-plus community gardens around NYC, and offering opportunities for resources and workshops citywide. The City Farms also hopes to expand its organizational connections to assist with this broader reach. It has formed partnerships with the Green Guerillas, Green Thumb, City Harvest, Northeast Organic Farming Association of New York, Cornell Cooperative Extension and Heifer Project International to expand public awareness of gardening, enhance food growing skills, develop market opportunities and increase donations of fresh produce to soup kitchens.
In recent years, the citys decision to bulldoze or auction off hundreds of gardens galvanized support for community gardening. Just Food and its partner Green Guerillas hope to further increase support for community gardening through public education about its role in improving the quality of life, in part through a planned 2002 Urban Agriculture Summit that Just Food will co-host with CFSC among other groups. Just Food leaders also recognize that the sustainability of community gardens over the long term will benefit from leadership development. To this end, they are working with community residents to build their capacity to organize and develop urban gardening projects independently within their neighborhoods. The sustainability of The City Farms, as intended in the Community Food Projects legislation, will depend in some measure on their ability to meet their goals fostering community leadership and building public support for urban gardening.
[Source: A Guide to Community Food Projects, Maya Tauber and Andy Fisher, Community Food Security Coalition, 2002]
