Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
space now serving twenty-five families. This garden is located on an unused baseball field in a low-income
housing area. Each family has a 6-by-6-foot plot and receives two full bags of produce per week.
Does the garden location influence the mission?
The three gardens serve over a hundred refugee families, or “new American families,” as founder Jack Wood
likes to call his gardeners. Most participants need to be within walking distance of the gardens. Being close
to a church basement enables the gardeners to grow 4,000 tomato seedlings each season.
Who is the food being grown for?
The produce goes to all the families who actively participate in the garden work. There are often three gener-
ations working in the gardens, with big families to feed. At the end of the season, they hold a garden market,
raising about six hundred dollars from selling excess produce.
Who are the gardeners?
The gardeners are three generations of the one hundred “new American” families who are refugees from
Bhutan, Africa, and Bosnia, sponsored by Lutheran Social Services. There are Buddhists, Hindus, and
Moslems learning to garden together.
Does the neighborhood have any impact on the mission?
The mission is to bring the ethnically diverse people in the area together to garden as a community. To this
end, it is important that the gardeners stick to a schedule, not coming and going from the garden at random.
The three different generations are encouraged to become independent by gardening with their peers. People
of multiple faiths spend three hours a week together in the garden, and bring people into the community to
grow with them. Garden leaders work to break down caste systems from the countries of origin, and try to
get women to speak for themselves, often by learning to design their own gardens.
Is there an educational mandate for the garden?
Many of the children of the refugees are actively involved in garden tasks at a garden called Growing To-
gether at the Gathering. They learn to water, pick ripe vegetables, and box produce. In the garden is a Librar-
ies for Everyone box with topics for young children. Teacher volunteers help by working with the children in
the garden and conducting a reading program. Once a week, children garden for an hour and read topic for
an hour. Then the group prepares a meal. A local bakery, Breadsmith, donates four loaves of bread. On sand-
wich night, the children help prepare the meal, roasting corn and making salads and sandwiches.
Is the garden genesis driven by some other need, example, or force?
Food is important but getting together is a fellowship.
TRI-NEIGHBORHOOD COMMUNITY GARDEN, NORFOLK, VIRGINIA
MISSION STATEMENT
The Tri-Neighborhood Community Garden of Norfolk, Virginia, is a nonprofit effort manned by volun-
teers as a community-teaching garden, promoting a prosperous, equitable, and sustainable world.
Are any existing organizations sponsoring or starting the garden? Do their missions need to be part of
how the garden is developed?
