Building community through gardens
By ASHLEY HIRT | Apr. 6, 2010The houses are dilapidated. Boarded up. Vacant lots abound. Shards of glass are crunched into smaller pieces with each passing Escalade. Rap music rattles windowpanes. This is Massachusetts Avenue in Buffalo, a neighborhood filled with crime, drugs and debris. This urban environment is an unlikely place for agriculture. Yet eight lots of land were reclaimed for the youth program, Growing Green, for that very purpose. In the winter the garden is barren and desolate, with only the brightly painted Growing Green mural of flowers and vines brightening the dreary atmosphere. When spring arrives, the garden creates new life and new beginnings in both the plants and the teenagers of the youth program. The Growing Green Anthem, written by Romero Gossom, supports the new beginnings in the inner city youth through this particular verse: "We are trying to be some better teens with new routines, you know what I mean, it's all about Growing Green!" Ashley McGuffin is in her fourth year of the program, and looking back, she believes she has changed as a person. When she first entered the program, she didn't care about her schoolwork and rarely spent time studying. Each summer, inner city youth like McGuffin are selected to work on the urban farm. However, this year the county has cut the employment program that pays for the paychecks of 50 teenagers. Erin Sharkey, the communications director for Growing Green, is devastated by this recent budget cut. Sharkey's hands may not be rough and calloused like a farmer's, but she works hard to spread the word about Growing Green. She organizes door-to-door visits describing what Growing Green does for the community. The last thing she wants to see is this program fold because of the cuts. She is brainstorming for ways to find the funds, so that the kids can continue to help their families pay for electric bills and school supplies. Different fundraisers, like the pancake breakfast, will help raise money. Community members and the teens and staff of Growing Green do not want to witness the disappearance of this program. The Growing Green program was implemented with the help of the Massachusetts Avenue Project (MAP), which had its own beginnings as a community block club. Growing Green fights hunger, promotes economic development and is an educational environmental program for inner city youth. Before the budget cut MAP's building caught fire and burnt to the ground. MAP had a chance for rebirth. After the City of Buffalo closed many of its public libraries, MAP converted the library at 271 Grant Street into its office building. It leases this building from the city. Growing Green could again address the needs of the West side neighborhood - food security and access to fresh affordable food. The future of Growing Green depends on community support. "People on the West side are always moving in and out of the area, making it a constant challenge to make community members aware of the program," Sharkey said. Once the community hears about the program they are excited that the neighborhood provides a nice after school activity at a time when the school district keeps making cuts in school programs. A resident of Buffalo, Claity Massey, appreciates the concept of Growing Green, and thinks it has great potential. "It teaches people to eat in healthy ways and to create meals that are a much better bargain than just going to McDonalds." Massey said. The most popular event among the teens and the community is "Be Local, Eat Local," according to Jordan Velazquez, a first year participant in Growing Green. Velazquez's excitement is heard in his voice. He talks a mile-a-minute, and his grin gets larger. "The whole entire community comes for a cookout in the summer," Velazquez said. "The event is free with music and plays are put on all day long. I gave out information about food systems, and other people from Growing Green talked about our local garden." Growing up on the West side, teens are not exposed to fresh produce, let alone forests. Samina Raja, associate professor in UB's Urban and Regional Planning department, addressed the need for gardens in Buffalo after finding multiple food deserts in her Queen City Gardens Plan. "A food desert is an area with an abundance of corner stores and fast food," Sharkey said. "They are areas where fresh food is not readily available." Growing Green tries to eliminate food deserts with their Mobile Markets. Last year, they distributed over 2,500 pounds of food to the community. A new addition to the program is an aquaponics system. This system has fish in a barrel of water. Their waste products are nutrient rich, and it provides fertilizer when pumped into the garden beds of salad greens. Along with the sale of fresh produce the tilapia from the aquaponics system are now for sale. A small greenhouse made of straw, adobe mud and polycarbonate plastic has tripled food growth at the MAP garden. "While we can't grow enough food for the whole community, at least many kids are eating produce when they didn't eat it before the program," Sharkey said. Jessie Hersher, a UB graduate student in the School of Urban Planning, embraces community gardens. "I try hard to stuff the freezer with local products," Hersher said. She doesn't have a backyard at her Elmwood Avenue home, and would like space to grow her own vegetables and produce. Hersher enjoys seeing green spaces on her block because the houses are squeezed together in confined spaces. "I think one of the best things about Buffalo is the sense of community, and community gardens enhance this sense of community," Hersher said. "Buffalo will have more value, and it's more likely that people will move there from the sense of community that exists." Community gardens not only change a community's physical appearance, but it positively impacts the community members. Sharkey remembers one particular life changing experience for a mother and her daughter. "A mother came in looking for emergency food referrals, and she was also interested in opportunities for her daughter to get involved in the program to help out financially at home," Sharkey said. "This girl entered the program shy and quiet. She believed her opinion didn't matter. After being involved in the program she became more social, and expressed herself." Memories like this one remind Sharkey of why she will continue to fight for grant money to ensure teens are given a paycheck for their hard work. She will continue to put in endless hours at work. Why does she do this? She does it for the smiles on the children's faces, the well-being of a community that didn't have access to fresh produce, and most importantly, she promotes social change through urban gardens. E-mail: news@ubspectrum.com
