free digger
Monday, April 04, 2005
Our Gardens, Our Future
Haja Worley and Karen Washington from the New York City Community Garden Coalition. Click here for more photographs of the Our Gardens, Our Future meeting.
I went to the the Our Gardens, Our Futures meeting last Saturday, April 2. The meeting was organized by an ad hoc group called the Forum Planning Committee, which included folks from the New York City Community Garden Coalition, More Gardens!, the Green Guerillas, and at least one fellow Garden Kvetch (Hi Jon!). According to the flyer for the event, this was a citywide meeting for community gardeners to “help decide the next steps gardeners should take to meet our biggest challenges.”
Edie Stone, the director of GreenThumb, the city agency that administers the community garden program, said it most succinctly, “How do you translate a grassroots, anarchistic, rebellious movement into an institution--and still keep what’s vital about it?” She was referring to her own organization, but I think it is a challenge that we all face.