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Norman Bethea, Tim Mamadou, and Greg Malone at Common
Good City Farm. Photo: Amanda Abrams.
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Last year, when Common Good City Farm found out it had to leave its home on 7th Street, co-founder Liz Falk wasn’t sure where the project would wind up. Her feeler emails soliciting suggestions resulted in a response from someone she barely knew. “Call me,” it said.
Thirteen months later, the urban garden and education center is part of the redevelopment of Gage-Eckington School in Ledroit Park. Not simply a side project, the farm wound up being an integral element that kept the redevelopment plans moving forward.
When Falk sent out her email, she got lucky. Included on the list was Dana Bryson, whom farm staff knew from the Bloomingdale farmers’ market. Bryson, it turned out, was also heading up the Gage-Eckington working group for the Ledroit Park Civic Association, helping to decide how the school would be used after it closed for good at the end of the 2008 school year.
Neighbors’ hopes for the site were mixed: some wanted to see social services agencies filling the old school; others thought the building should be torn down and a park built in its place. But everyone agreed on a garden.
Falk, of course, said yes. “So we worked with them for 13 months, back and forth with the group and the mayor, about what they wanted the site to look like. It was a very long process,” she explained.
Jeff Herron, president of the civic association, was involved in negotiations all along. The planning process wasn’t a smooth one: stakeholders spent months seeking agencies and nonprofits to fill the old school, only to see those plans scrapped when the city determined it couldn’t afford the renovations. Changing direction, the groups finally decided the site would become a three-acre park, with areas for sports, dogs, and kids.
But the garden was crucial from the very beginning. “[Common Good] needed a place to move to and wanted to start preparing, so that drove us to get something done,” said Herron, adding that even when the initial plan was nixed, the garden proposal wasn’t touched. In October, Common Good moved to its new half-acre home.
On a recent afternoon, Falk was busy watering bean plants designed to improve the soil of the former baseball diamond they were growing on. Nearby was a spiral bed planted with eggplant, beets, and squash.
Falk says the Gage-Eckington site and residential neighborhood around it is a great fit for the farm. “Our kids’ program has grown at least threefold, and our workshops are always full.” The organization also just received unofficial notice that it will be awarded a USDA grant allowing Falk to finally begin paying her staff, so the mood at the farm is upbeat.
Sitting at a picnic table eating tomatoes from the garden were three program participants who live nearby: Norman Bethea, 13; Tim Mamadou, 12; and Greg Malone, 10. All three said they’d continue helping out at the farm when school started again, and they all agreed watering was the best task. Why? “You’re creating new life,” said Norman. |
