The Philadelphia Urban Creators

While transitioning into spring, strong partnerships have continued to lay the foundation for PUC’s expansion.  Bellow are descriptions of some more of these ever evolving relationships that define the diverse movement we are all working together to build.

1) Our Community: With the arrival of warmer weather, young people from throughout our neighborhood have flocked to the farm to participate in our after school activities. Kids of ALL ages have begun to spend almost every day with us helping to plant the first seeds of the new season, expand the garden, paint, and just hang out. While they have been with us, we have made sure to engage them in a variety of reading, writing, and math activities such as practicing reading and spelling the names of the seeds we are planting or measuring the lay out of the farm, or calculate the price of our crops. While relatively informal now, these small interactions are the beginnings of what is evolving into our after school program where we will help students grasp the concepts that they are learning in school through hands-on activities on the farm.

On April 1st, we held another community block party which was a HUGE SUCCESS! Dozens of the children and their families came out to enjoy the day that was filled with music, snacks, seed planting, weed clearing, face and mural painting, and even some horse back riding!

Weather big or small, each of these daily interactions contribute to making our program more and more community based.  The families of the children that are with us each day have an increasingly invested interest in the project, and the kids themselves are turning into spectacular young leaders on the farm!

2) Education Works & Heartranft’s After School Program: Every wednesday afternoon, students from Education Work’s after school program at Heartranft middle school (our neighborhood public school) have joined us at the farm.  They have been a huge help as we have transitioned into spring, and we have trained these students to be expert composters, recyclers, seed and seedling planters, and even young community organizers.  As a result of this blossoming partnership, these students are now applying all that they have learned with us to their own school campus where they are now managing their own garden!

This is really exciting for us because it is the first step in the overall direction that our overall program is headed. The goal of all of the relationships the we develop with local schools, organizations, and neighbors, is to empower them to initiate their own projects. The start of this groups garden is a perfect example of the effectiveness of  this model where we host volunteers, train them, and send them back to their communities to with the skill set to export this overall vision and lead their own movements towards self sustainability.

3) Fairhill Housing Cooking Class: For the past several months, we have assisted Tara Anastasi of Foundations, Inc., with a cooking class at the Fairhill high-rise community center across the street.  Every Thursday, PUC organizers help Miss Tara to teach children from the Fairhill Apartments how to make such tasty treats as salsa, quesadillas, spring rolls, scrambled eggs, pancakes, muffins, and hummus.

The kids sure love making and finally eating their creations, and we have lots of fun helping them! And Once our crops are ready to harvest, the class will purchase and prepare produce right from the farm! Because of the energy generated from this program, these students now also spend one day a week with us at the farm, where we are training them with the basic skills to start their own garden in the court yard of the high rises.

4) GrassROOTS Foundation: This year we had the honor of establishing a partnership with the GrassRoots foundation, an organization that focuses on teaching nutrition and mental wellness to young women of color in inner-city communities across the nation. The organization was founded by Dr. Janice Dias and Tariq “Black Thought” Trotter from The Legendary Roots crew.

For our first collaboration, we were asked to cater a community event and fundraiser hosted by the GrassRoots Foundation, where we served fresh and healthy snacks to the patrons of their Fundraiser. In the morning, we participated in a community meeting with the GrassRoots staff, Tariq, Mayor Nutter, the C.H.I.C.K.S. program, and other organizers and representatives from throughout the city, and at night attended an awesome concert and dance party with legendary performers from Philadelphia including Dj Rich Medina , Dj Diamond Kuts, and Quest Love and Black thought from the Roots. At both events, we served our very own Salsa made from produce from the farm, along with Hummus made by the students in the Fairhill Cooking class and Quiche made by students in A.P. Randolph’s Culinary program.

This was a great opportunity to network and market our project to an entirely new community filled with musicians, doctors, activists, organizers, and people of all professions. The event was a great success and we got lots of fees back and encouragement from so many adults. It was an amazing day, and the start to what we hope to be a long lasting partnership with the GrassRoots Foundation. We hope to provide their C.H.I.C.K.S program with our food and teach them how to bring a community garden to their school, and help youth throughout Philadelphia learn the importance of maintaining a healthy life style while empowering them with the tools and resources to create these healthy environments for themselves and their communities.

For more info on GrassRoots Go to www.GrassRootsfoundation.Org

5) Growing Power INC (round 2):

This April, six PUC organizers that were blessed with the opportunity to go to Growing Power INC’s weekend workshop for the second straight year. Growing Power is one of the nations largest urban agricultural programs, and located in one of Milwaukee’s most disadvantaged neighborhoods. We spent the weekend taking workshops, sharing ideas, and talking with other farmers and environmental justice organizers. Members of PUC learned the art of bee keeping, community project design, cultivating mushrooms, and instilling renewable energy. We ate from the richest vegetable, used honey and drank milk made by Growing Power themselves!

The power of learning from another organization that has successfully implemented the art of food production as well as community involvement is true inspiration, and it is now our job to take the skills that we learned from Growing Power and utilize them to empower the youth and residents of Philadelphia. This weekend sparked new energy and innovation from this transformative weekend with Will Allen and staff! We are excited to continue to grow, learn, eat, and educate the people of Philadelphia.

6) Sedexo Foundation: In February, we received word that PUC is one of the recipients of the Sedexo Foundation’s STOP Hunger grant for $5,000!  This is the largest grant we have won, and it is going to be a huge boost to our initiatives as we enter the summer.  On April 25th, the Sedexo crew joined us at the farm to meet us and film us for a short film they are making about PUC’s work with local food production and education in North Philly. This short film will be available in June.

7) Philadelphia Former Gang Member Association & Friends: Finally, one of our longest partnerships has begun to blossom. For the past 3 years, PUC has attended community meetings hosted by the Philadelphia Former Gang Member Association; an organization also founded in 2009-10 by ex-offenders and former Philadelphia Gang members. The Association has worked diligently to bring many different organizations together to collectively provide ex-offenders with support while re-entering society, with opportunities to give back to and inspire peace in their communities, and to mentor “at risk” youth to keep them from falling into similar paths. After several years of these meetings, strong partnerships are being forged, a unified vision is starting to emerge, and together, this network beginning to empower segments of these neglected populations to more effectively navigate the systems that restrict their social mobility, and participate in the movement to reinvent them from the ground-up.

Throughout the fall and concluding months of 2011, PUC has had the wonderful opportunity to work with students from schools throughout the Philadelphia area to develop Life Do Grow and prepare for the winter frost.  These partnerships have proved to be inspirational and empowering for all involved. These groups have helped us with so many projects on the farm, and we have facilitated interactive workshops with them to help them analyze the deep interconnection between the socio-economic and environmental issues facing our communities and understand the relevance of our work so that they can become more deeply immersed in our initiatives.

Bellow is descriptions of our recent partnerships with these various groups.

A. Philip Randolph Career Academy

From October – December, PUC was granted the wonderful opportunity to partner with A. Phillip Randolph Career Academy, a school where students are allowed to successfully complete high school while attaining sufficient academic credits and vocational skills to pursue post secondary education and enter the work force with vital experience. With the unconditional support and help of the principal Daryl Overton and the construction instructor Mr. Pikunas (Mr. P) we were able to build same amazing structures on the land. Mr. P and a group of ten seniors from Randolph were able to design and construct a tool shed and our very first greenhouse for their senior project and community service requirement to graduate.

Together, we built this tool shed and greenhouse that will be a tremendous necessity during winter months. The toolshed is made entirely out of scrap lumbar that we collected from a house demolition, and wooden pallets collected from a seemingly endless pallet graveyard in New Jersey.

 
The greenhouse structure is made out of reclaimed lumbar, and plastic covering, reused chicken wire, and recycled plastic bottles, and is designed with a 10 degrees angle roof so that we can collect rainwater and eventually install solar panels to energy generate for an aquaponic system. We are also composting inside and around the greenhouse to generate heat during the winter months.

This partnership has allowed North Philadelphia high school students to create a structure that will provide healthy, locally grown food to other residents of this community year round. There has also been opportunity for residents of the neighborhood to meet and greet Randolph students while they constructed the greenhouse. The work that the students at Randolph have performed is only the beginning of long standing relationship. We are excited about the spring season and to continue to build with Mr. P and his wonderful students!

Crossroads Accelerated Academy  &  Elverson Military Academy

Two of our most local and committed school partners are Crossroads and Elverson Military Academies. Located just 4 blocks south of LDG, 4 groups of students have rotated in and out of the farm each week. We have developed strong relationships with these two schools in order to engage their students in the overall development of LDG, and as a way for teachers to integrate our farm into their classroom curricula as hands on teaching tools.

These students have volunteered with such energy and enthusiasm as they helped us clear 150 square feet of our expanding garden space, convert food scraps into compost, enhance our rain catchment system, and cover the green house erected by A.P. Randolph.  They have also deeply engaged in our workshops, and many have shown interest in becoming young organizers in PUC in the future.

Sankofa Rights of Passage Program

The partnership between Sankofa and PUC happened very organically. Organizers Brother Fuahz and Jeaninne met at a local open mic. They shared ideas and decided that the forces they both work with should combine. Sankofa is a rights of passage program operating in 8 high schools in North Philadelphia. The program is specifically targeted for young African American and Afro Latino men as a way of connecting them more deeply to their roots and empowering them to become young leaders. It teaches that in order to become a man, according to African tradition, there is much knowledge to gain. Some of the Sankofa courses include African drumming, spoken word, and various ancient martial arts. Upon the partnership with PUC we are now trying to work on land cultivation as an addition to their courses.

During the summer, Sankofa devoted a generous amount of volunteer time to PUC as apart of their summer program. And in October, we were fortunate enough to host their opening ceremonies at our farm. The ceremony consisted of over 200 young men from the 8 schools affiliated with the program, as well as staff and school district officials. These groups collectively performed their mantra, and spent the day rotating between different orientation stations which included drumming circles, self expression and spoken word, and PUC’s own cultivation workshop where we discussed the importance of harvesting our own food as a way of connecting to our roots and harvesting ourselves and our communities.

It was very inspiring for PUC to witness and host this special occasion. The relationship between us has a strong foundation and lots of room for growth into the future.

Temple and Villanova Universities

Throughout the semester, students from both Temple and Villanova universities have volunteered at the farm. Some of these students came with classes, to fulfill community service credits or service-learning requirements, as apart of school days of service, or simply because they heard about PUC’s initiatives and came out to support. On Martin Luther King Jr. Day, we were fortunate enough to have a huge turnout of eager students from Villanova to work with us on our day of service and remembrance.

Together, these groups have done an amazing job helping us clear weeds and brush as well as the area on which our greenhouse now sits, insulating the greenhouse, and placing down mulch throughout the space where we plan to expand our garden this spring. It has been wonderful to watch these group work together with members of our community and with youth from throughout Philadelphia, all while having a good time giving back to the community and our collective environment. It is so important that we begin to find healthy, organic ways of integrating the populations of the various universities throughout our city with the communities that surround their campus’…..particularly in North Philadelphia.

This summer, PUC has been dedicated to laying a strong foundation for the farm.   After our first season of operation, our student volunteers reflected on their experiences with us with a strong sense of empowerment. But, they also made it clear that we needed to make some significant changes if we were to continue working with groups of volunteers and sustain the farm.  They urged us to find a way to create shade for those working in the grueling sun, and more importantly, to find a sustainable source of water for the garden so that we would no longer have to depend on lugging gallon jugs of water from our homes.  So, we teamed up with Dev from across the street to devise a plan that would address both of these issues at once.

From this came the idea for our shade structure, which would also function as a water catchment system.  We first tried building this structure out of PVC pipes, but that soon proved to be not nearly strong enough to withstand strong. So, we started over, this time using lumbar to make a rectangular frame. But, we were once again faced with the brunt force of Mother Nature when this frame also came down under the weight of caught water.

Finally, after learning from our mistakes, we attempted to rebuild the structure once more, this time with a roof reinforced with tin scraps that Dev had collected at his shop over the years.

This new, revised model faced its first true test in daring fashion with the onslaught of Hurricane Irene.  We were afraid that it wouldn’t hold through such a powerful storm, but I suppose 3^rd time is, in fact, the charm because it not only held strong, but also filled up our rain barrels in minutes!

With this new, sustainable source of water, we were finally able to provide our plants with the hydration that they had so desperately desired since first being planted.  As expected, this resulted in an explosive transformation in the garden as our crops burst into fruition.  By the end of July, we were regularly harvesting tomatoes, green peppers, jalapeño peppers, string beans, collard greens, broccoli, mint and lettuce.

We have also begun to surround the landscape of the farm with an assortment of beautiful flowers. These flowers are not only greatly improving the aesthetic value of the land, but also attract all kinds of pollinating insects that are creating a much more rich, bio-diverse community in the area.

At first, PUC organizers passed these crops out to our closest neighbors. But by mid-August, we had enough to finally begin selling!  On August 4^th, PUC held it’s first official local “HOME GROWN, HOME MADE” market.   Unfortunitely, many of our organizers didn’t show up for the market, but AJ and Angel came to from down the block to help us harvest our crops for the sale, and brought over a pot of freshly cooked Collard Greens (picked from the garden) that their mother had made for the market.   YUMMM!!

Once the market started, AJ and Angel were our first customers, and from then on they sold the majority of our food to the neighbors that stopped by.   At the end of the day, we had earned $23.50.   That may not seem like much, but it is the start to our business, which we plan to make flourish next spring, and into the future.

Since the market, we have continued to harvest our crops, and produced just enough to create our first value added product: SALSA!   PUC organizers blended our tomatoes, bell peppers, and hot peppers to make 10 jars of the best tasting Salsa in Philadelphia, which we are now selling at Leotah’s Place, a small organic store 10 blocks east of the farm at $6 a pop!

   
Overall, this summer was definitely successful, but also a reality check. Varying summer schedules amongst our young organizers rendered us extremely unorganized, and at times resulted in the farm not being tended to for days at a time.  Many of our main young organizers came to accept that they could not make the commitment necessary to be responsible for sustaining a project like this, and the life that we are growing. But, amidst all of these changes, so many of our neighbors, of all ages, stepped up to fill those gaps, and it is they that have enabled the farm to continue to function. We have a lot of internal issues to work out, but it seems that our disorganization has opened up opportunities for the community to become further engaged in the project, and more deeply engrained in its foundation…which, ironically, has been our primary goal from the beginning.

We have accepted that things change, seasons shift, and people move on. But with a strong, unified foundation, these changes simply become a natural part of the entangled fabric of the movement that we are building. What doesn’t break us makes us stronger, and for PUC, this sentiment couldn’t be any more true than it is now.

To kick off the start of summer, PUC threw its second community block party.  This was our first opportunity to celebrate our progress with friends, families, partners, and neighbors on the farm itself.

The goal of this block party was simple: to have fun and bring the surrounding community into the space to learn about what we are doing and discuss ways that we can collaborate in solidarity to further transform our land, as well as the rest of North-Central Philadelphia.    After weeks of outreach and canvassing in the neighborhood, groups of neighbors came out to show their support and learn about our project.

After taking groups on tours of the farm and breaking out into small discussions about the project, we all shifted our attention to food: hot dogs, hamburgers, and most importantly, LETTUCE HARVESTED FROM THE FARM!  Luckily, the block party coincided with our first harvest and community members were able to sample some of the greens that we had planted in the ground just a few weeks before.

Throughout the afternoon, DJ’s from the Fairhill Public Housing projects provided the pulse for the party, playing music that could be heard from York St. down to Nevada. Kids throughout the neighborhood followed their ears towards the music and their noses towards the food, and spent the day helping us paint the walls surrounding the farm.

And together we also planted some of our first tomatoes!

Overall, the event was a real success.  The farm now looks far more welcoming and is in the consciousness of many more of our closest neighbors.  A number of these neighbors also expressed a lot of interest in getting involved and helping us to keep up the garden by growing, eating, and eventually selling the vegetables grown right here in, by, and for the community.

Farm Profile (6/8/2011)

The past two months for PUC have been dedicated to planting seeds of change on our farm, in our community, and in the hearts and minds of those around us.

After uprooting all the weeds and clearing the first section of our land with students from Crossroads and Military Academies, we began to lay the new foundation to our urban farm. We dug 7 trenches into the ground, lined them with a layer of cardboard, filled them with new rich soil, and surrounded the trenches with rocks, stones, and bricks that we gathered while digging.

We may not have a lot of money, but we sure are resourceful.

After preparing these trenches/beds, we were finally ready to begin planting!  PUC organizers have been growing seedlings in each of our homes for the past month and a half to prepare for our first planting days, and we were given a generous donation of seedlings from Temple University’s Ambler campus.

So far we have planted tomatoes, greens, kale, spinach, beans, carrots, beets, collards and lettuce, both of which have grown real big! And neighbors of all ages have come by to help us plant, water, turn compost, and even build a fence and stairs!

Since returning from Milwaukee, the Philly Urban Creators have been on a mission to put into action all that we have learned from Growing Power, as well as from our trips to New Orleans, New Jersey, and New York. And, with the bursting arrival of Spring,  our vision for our land at 11th & York Street has blossomed along side the flowering trees surrounding our 2 acres at the heart of North-Central Philadelphia.

Before creating anything, however, we first needed to uproot all the massive weeds that had anchored themselves to the foundations of our land. But, after realizing how daunting a task this would be, particularly concerning the fact that all of these weeds would need to be pulled up by their roots in order for them not to grow back, we decided to reach out for some help.

Throughout April and May, groups of students from Crossroads Academy and Military Academy at Elverson came to assist us in the redevelopment of our farm’s foundation.  15 students from each school spent two afternoons with us pulling up weeds and digging the first of our trenches.

Providing meaningful educational experiences for local young people is a central component of PUC’s mission. Therefore, in conjunction with these work days, PUC organizers also facilitated workshops with these students called “UpRooted.” After a series of icebreaker games, we broke into a discussion where we all began to identify the major social, political, economic, and environmental issues in our respective communities.  Given that the majority of these students live and go to school in the North-Central Philadelphia area, many issues such as crime, violence, gang warfare, drug use and drug dealing, trash, and the lack of jobs and grocery stores were brought up repeatedly.  We then asked the students to discuss and draw connections between these various issues on our Venn Diagram, as well as analyze the systemic root-causes of these issues.

Upon completion of these workshops, we explained the importance of pulling the weeds on our land up by their roots so they wouldn’t grow back, and then discussed this fundamental detail as a metaphor for the ways in which PUC seeks to address socioeconomic and environmental injustices in our community:  from the ground-up.

And if we begin to address these issues in the same way, maybe they, too, won’t grow back.

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This weekend, Alex, Tiye, Emily, Shaniqua, and Denzel traveled to Milwaukee to attend Growing Power’s Growing Your Communities Food System “From the Ground Up” workshop. Last month, we received full scholarships from Will Allan to attend the March workshops to learn from their incredible model of urban agriculture.

The 5 of us spent 2 days participating in a series of workshops. First, Will Allen gave us a tour of Growing Power. He explained the history and roots of the organization, took us through its 6 green houses and 11 hoop houses, and explained how their aquaponic systems,  sustainable energy sources, year round production work. Then, we split up and took 4 breakout sessions focusing on composting, vermicomposting, hoop house building, greenhouse planting, renewable energy, mushroom harvesting, aquaponic systems, and community planning/organizing.

Because Denzel and Emily K. are the Farm Managers, they focused on the composting, mushroom and greenhouse workshops.  As the community organizers and networkers of the group, Alex, Tiye, and Shaniqua focused on the community organizing workshops, as well as the hoop house and aquaponic system building, and renewable energy production sessions.

Overall, this was one of the most important learning experiences for PUC. Not only did we have an opportunity to learn from the most productive model of urban farming in the nation, but we networked with dozens of members of similarly- focused farms and organizations throughout the country, and acquired extremely valuable skills in composting, harvesting, construction, business management, education, innovation, and community organization that we can now apply to our own projects in Philadelphia!

Through thick and through thin, PUC members have started off the new year with a BANG! Throughout January and February, we took the first significant steps towards laying the foundation for our educational urban farm at 11th & York in Fairhill, North Philly.

We have cleared a large portion of the land, gathered supplies, people, and even a few friendly neighborhood animals, in order to build our first (of what will be many) compost bins.  By drilling 3 sets of 5 wooden pallets together and covering them each with screen, and paint of course, we have successfully built 3 beautiful bins that will now serve to transform green and brown waste into the riches soil you can imagine.

Residents of all ages have come by to help us build and paint our compost bins, and together, we have begun transform this land and this community.

The year didn’t start off so easy though. With one snow storm after another piling onto Philadelphia throughout the first part of the new year, we had to kick off this process by working in piles of snow.

This was a true test of PUC’s resilience. And despite the harsh weather, groups of up to 20 have consistently shown up ready to work filled with energy, excitement, and passion. If two feet of snow can’t stop us, what can!?!

CLICK HERE LISTEN TO THE AMAZING 8 PART PODCAST

Over this past summer, young organizers from the Philly Urban Creators worked with the New York 2 New Orleans Coalition and Youth Coalition 4 Community Action to organize a total of 16 trips to New Orleans for approximately 500 young people nation wide.  On the 8th of these trips, a group of Audio Producers from the Young Producers Project drove down to New Orleans with a group of Philadelphia students to document the work we did with Our School At Blair Grocery.

Now, this project has finally accumulated into an incredible 8 Part Podcast, that highlights the hard work we all did in the 9th Ward, the vision of Our School At Blair Grocery, as well as the impact and vision of the young organizers from all over the country that came together to create the 2010 Food Justice Freedom Summer for Youth & Community Empowerment.