EDUCATION
Community Gardening - from Victory Gardens to P-Patches: During many periods in history, urban agriculture has helped solve food security issues while producing local, nutritious food for all. Sandy Pernitz from Seattle's P-Patch program joined the SAGE Project to give us a history of community gardening movements and an overview of the P-Patch program, which was born out of environmental activism in the 1970s and today provides 68 community gardens for residents throughout Seattle. SAGE participants learned about the many benefits of community gardening, including connection to food, community building, cultural traditions, public expression, improving neighborhoods and cross-generational connections. The P-Patch program also promotes community food security by encouraging gardeners to donate fresh produce to local food banks and feeding programs; in 2008 P-Patch gardeners donated 12.3 tons of organic produce!Wanda Moore, a GSC member, shared her reflections on Victory Gardens in Seattle during the World War II era. She remembers residents creating huge gardens on abandoned farm land and ripping up parking strips to grow produce, and she spoke about how the experience would bring neighbors together. Dan Pavlovic, a community member who is on the steering committee for Vision Greenwood Park, discussed the opportunity to develop a P-Patch garden in an empty lot located in the nearby Greenwood Park with enough community support. Karen Cirulli, an AmeriCorps volunteer focusing on community development, provided information about the community garden she coordinates on Aurora.
ACTION
Volunteering at the Aurora Community Garden: In April, Awake Church began a community garden with the hope of beautifying Aurora, providing food for community meals and, most importantly, bringing people together. Following the SAGE presentation on community gardening, we headed over to the garden on an extremely hot afternoon to help out with a few projects. The heat was so oppressive that we had to limit the work we did, but it was a valuable experience nonetheless.
Karen gave us a tour, talking about the many neighbors she's gotten to know through Wednesday night barbeques held at the garden and the participation of the community in garden maintenance. We spent our time creating "tee-pees" for the beans, thinning carrots, weeding around the lettuce and kale, and participating in the very first harvest! On our way back to GSC we stopped at the Sun Hill Motel to share freshly picked peas, baby carrots and green pepper with the residents there.
Karen gave us a tour, talking about the many neighbors she's gotten to know through Wednesday night barbeques held at the garden and the participation of the community in garden maintenance. We spent our time creating "tee-pees" for the beans, thinning carrots, weeding around the lettuce and kale, and participating in the very first harvest! On our way back to GSC we stopped at the Sun Hill Motel to share freshly picked peas, baby carrots and green pepper with the residents there.
