Behind Closed Gates, Brooklyn Community Gardens Continue to Plant Seeds of Change
“There’s so much trauma in our community right now, we’re creating space for our members who need to breathe and grieve.
By Marialexa Kavanaugh
Bedford Bowery
June 25, 2020
Excerpt:
A community farm like 462 Halsey, which offers sizable fresh food boxes for $14, is in many ways the most affordable and efficient route to produce and green public space. In this sense, the garden’s decision to beef up its produce supply and distribute it as widely as possible is the exact same activism they’ve always carried out, now just on an unprecedented scale. As of June 12, garden members had delivered over 2,000 pounds of produce to the Golden Harvest food pantry. If each of their food box subscribers donated one more dollar a week going forward, they’d have enough funds to give the pantry a weekly wholesale order of produce for the duration of the pandemic, according to garden organizers and Grow NYC.
Other community gardens are showing solidarity differently. Just one neighborhood away in Weeksville, the Imani community garden blasts music and hands out free kale to protestors. Like its Bed-Stuy neighbors, food equity and access has always been its ethos. Prior to the pandemic, Imani members operated a weekly farm stand from July to September. They also teach classes on agriculture and chicken-raising at the local middle school.
