The census tract where Neighborhood Gardens, a 5,000-square-foot cooperative garden, is located had a poverty rate of 24 percent from 2005-09, more than double the estimated 11.7 percent poverty rate for the metro area during those years, according to Portland State University's Institute of Metropolitan Studies. Located in one of Portland’s food deserts, notwithstanding the presence of multiple corner marts, the former Safeway store front, which at one time anchored the Division Crossing shopping center in the Centennial neighborhood, has now sat empty for nearly two years.
Yet, a group of community leaders and neighbors that saw a problem were also able to quickly come together, with no help from public offices, to address it, transforming a vacant lot into a vibrant community garden. And, as recent research suggests, the social and ecological impact of this transformation can have numerous benefits beyond simple food production.
Look around your neighborhood. Is there vacant space that could be better utilized? Let the organizers, planners and creators of Neighborhood Gardens inspire you to action.
Identify Resources
In an effort to provide fresh and healthy food to the residents in this part of the Centennial neighborhood, Lynwood Friends Church had looked into converting a portion of an unused lot into a community garden a number of years ago.
“The one resource we had available was land,” Pastor Bill Moorman recalls. “We didn’t have water, and we didn’t have any gardening expertise. And we lacked the drive by individuals to get things done.”
Moorman and the church found that the City of Portland didn’t seem terribly interested in utilizing the space for a community garden. “This was a number of years ago,” Moorman adds. “And from what I understand is that the city’s perspective is 180 degrees different in regards to developing community gardens in East Portland.”
Without assistance from the city, it appeared that the church had limited options available to make use of this land without a significant investment of its own. But the church learned the next key lesson of this project: There are plenty of available community resources to accomplish your project, you just need to find them.
Make Connections
The purpose and mission of Outgrowing Hunger is to turn the metro area’s vacant lots into thriving gardens through the collaboration of community stakeholders. The organization’s main area of focus is low-income areas where the need to access fresh and healthy food is greatest.
In February, Outgrowing Hunger’s founder Adam Kohl connected with Pastor Moorman and it seemed like a natural fit. By March, there was a land-use agreement for Outgrowing Hunger to build a 5,000-square-foot garden on the church’s empty lot, demonstrating that the right connection can propel a project forward rapidly.
Find Manpower
Getting permission from the church to build a garden on its lot was a step in the right direction, but the problem facing Outgrowing Hunger was it’s basically a one-man operation. Without a committed group of volunteers willing to put in sweat equity, Kohl realized it would take two to three years to complete the process by himself.
About 40 blocks east of the lot at Lynwood Friends Church, the Food Justice group of We Are Oregon held weekly meetings to address food access issues in the Rockwood area. Actively pursuing land to build a community garden, We Are Oregon’s Food Justice learned of the nascent efforts at Lynwood Friends Church. We Are Oregon quickly became enthusiastic supporters, pledging all available resources to help build the garden.
Build Community
But, it didn’t make sense for a Rockwood-based group alone to construct and utilize a community garden in the middle of another neighborhood. Directly involving the community that lived in the multifamily apartment buildings that surrounded the Lynwood lot was going to be essential for two reasons: first, to help recruit community members to share both the work and the harvest; and second, by involving the community members to keep an eye on the garden, it would mitigate the need—and expense—of building a fence or installing a security system. To maximize the garden’s benefit to the immediate Centennial neighborhood, the involvement of an organization that focused on organizing residents that lived near the garden was going to be necessary.
Enter the Rosewood Initiative, a nonprofit created by the East Portland Neighborhood Office in 2011 to bring together stakeholders—business owners, landlords and residents—to meet on a regular basis and address such issues as crime, safety, and improving the Centennial neighborhood.
Because of personal connections with the landlords, not to mention a substantial number of residents, in the area, the Rosewood Initiative’s involvement was essential for the Neighborhoods Garden to best serve its surrounding community.
With the Rosewood Initiative on board, the final piece of the puzzle was in place. With a celebratory air, members of each group met for the initial groundbreaking less than three months after the initial discussion with Pastor Moorman.
Keeping the garden up and running, members of We Are Oregon hold regularly scheduled work sessions, inviting neighbors to join. After registering for three sessions and leaving their contact info, neighbors will be contacted when a crop’s harvest is ready to be shared.
“As a group, we had the resources and we investigated what to do with them,” he explains. “The speed of how the garden was created demonstrated that there wasn’t a lack of resources, or interest, or energy.” Instead, all of these just simply needed to be connected.
While Kohl stresses that its necessary to continually ask yourself the basic questions “Why?” and “Who?”
“Why are you engaged in this project—is it for your own personal gain, or are you seeking to serve others?” Kohl questions. “And you should not only think about who you are doing your project for, but who you are doing your project with as well.”
For those looking to undertake a similar community project, Kohl suggests that answering these questions in the beginning will save both time and heartache. “Begin with the end in mind,” he advises.
