The Philadelphia Urban Creators

Throughout the winter and into the spring, we have been on our construction grind! Along with a new host of partner organizations, students from local schools, volunteers, and neighbors of all ages from the neighborhood, we have renovated old structures, built new ones, and laid the foundation for 2 new gardens in the area.

Each monday and wednesday, 15 young men from the Mural Arts Guild Restorative Justice Program have participated as extensions of Devon’s Development team, assisting in the construction of 2 new green houses, a new class room, our vertical herb growing wall, and 30 raised beds. Together, they recycled old materials, pre-fabricated all of the structures in Devon’s workshop, and then moved them out across the street to give LIFE DO GROW an entirely renovated new look. In the process, they have developed employable skill sets in construction, demolition, landscaping, and urban agriculture, and we are beginning to teach them entrepreneurial skills through the management and distribution of the products grown in the green house that they have build for FUEL Philly’s 3 restaurants down in center city.

THE NEW CLASSROOM

With renovations on our mind, we decided to demolish the class room, our very first structure, and build an new one in its place. We recycled the tin from the original roof and lumber used for its structure to build new raised beds, and have replaced it with a much sturdier structure. This new class room also functions as a large rain collecting system which funnels rain water into our 300 gallon reserve water tank.

FUEL Philly’s Custom Green House

This winter, the Restaurant chain, FUEL Philly, officially became the first investor in our green house production program. FUEL made an investment of $1,000, with which we purchased supplies to erect a 15ft by 10 ft green house customer designed to harvest micro greens, wheatgrass, and herbs for their menu.  This is the first, of what we plan to be many, such relationships with restaurants, and will soon evolve into the corner stone of our produce distributing business.

The guys from the Mural Arts Guild helped build the entire structure, and are now participating in the production of the plants inside, and will soon join in as we start selling these products to FUEL on a weekly basis. This way they are gaining practical skills in construction and green house production, as well as learning entrepreneurial skills through engaging with the inner workings of our emerging business plan.

THE VERTICAL HERB WALL

Using reclaimed wooden pallets, our building trade mark, we have created a vertical herb wall. This wall will soon be growing pounds of organic herbs including mint, basil, thyme, parsley, oregano, camomile, cilantro, rosemary, and lavender, and represent an affordable method to utilize vertical space for food production in an highly condensed urban setting.

We soon found that this wall quickly became integrated with the surrounding natural environment, and has become a host to all kinds of critters and small animals including this beautiful nest of Robin eggs.

DAKOTA GARDENS

Our neighbors, Visions of Missions church, have recently granted us permission to use a vacant lot that the own on Dakota street (just down the block from Life Do Grow). For years it has remained an overgrown vacant lot, but with the help of volunteers from throughout the city, we have cleared all of the weeds, laid down a thick layer of fresh mulch, and have installed 20 raised beds.

Before…….

The Process…..

After….

Along with members of the church and neighbors on Dakota street, we will be planting dozens of varieties of flowers in these raised beds, and will add a bee hive in the back of the property. This way, the flowers will provide a wealth of nectar for the bees to produce Honey, and in exchange, the bees will pollinate the flowers and help them spread their seeds throughout the neighborhood.

CARLISLE COMMUNITY GARDEN

Finally, in working with the neighbors on the 2300 block of N. Carlisle st, we have transformed a row homed sized vacant plot of land into a beautiful community garden. We have spent several months building relationship with the neighbors on the block, both long time residents and Temple students, and hosted a meeting to design the garden in early March.

Before…..

After….

Since then, we have covered the lot in fresh mulch, built 4 raised vegetable beds, a vertical herb wall out of pallets, and a raised bed around the fence for vines, flowers, and fruits to crawl up. We will be building them a green house in the next month. From here on out, the neighbors on this block will manage this site, and stand as an example how North Philadelphia Residents and Temple students can forge healthy relationships and collaborate to transform our urban landscape together.

In recent weeks, PUC has been on a mission to initiate the business end of our operation. For years, we have had the goal of developing relationships with restaurants in center-city to sell our produce to in order to generate a sustainable source of capital to re-invest in the expansion of our program, and to create jobs for local teens in our community as managers on the farm. But, with no one in our group having any experience in the world of business, these have only been vague conversations…..until now.

This fall, we finally reached a true consistency with the micro-greens grown in our green-house, and decided that it was time to put our product and vision to the test.

In october, we contacted 6 restaurants down town that we identified as having a potential interest in our micro-green sprouts and/or our organic wheatgrass. We then met with the owners of each of these 6 restaurants, explained to them the mission and vision of PUC, and supplied them with samples of our products.

Of those 6 restaurants, 4 of them showed a real interest in our products, and agreed to make a first purchase. In early november, we made initial trial sales, and we now have strong relationships with 3 of them to whom we are selling our sprouts each week! Go see for yourselves!!!

KAMAL’S MIDDLE EASTERN SPECIALTIES: READING TERMINAL MARKET

    SOOKHEE’S PRODUCE & JUICE BAR:  COMCAST CENTER BASEMENT

TEAFULL BLISS (11TH & SPRING GARDEN)       FUEL PHILLY  (12TH & WALNUT)

The fourth of these restaurants, Fuel Philly, is an up and coming restaurant chain that is looking to franchise their store throughout the region. They have shown a great deal of interest in working with us, and we are currently in negotiations with them about building them their own green-house on our farm from which we will grow produce exclusively for their various franchise’s.

This is a huge step forward for us. It is proof that our products are pure and desirable, and that we have grown enough as an organization to produce these products consistently. Our group has no prior experience with business management, so we are still very much learning from our mistakes as we go. But our learning curve is steep, and our determination unyielding. And with all of the positive energy flowing from our community, our partners, and the youth that we work with, these first few transactions appear to be beacons for the future of our organization, and small insights into the food revolution we are slowly building with our partners to transform Philly into a fully functioning model of local, sustainable, food systems and youth-driven, community-based development.    HERE WE COME!!!!

PUC friends and family, please take a few moments to visit our new Kickstarter campaign. We just launched it, and have a fundraising goal of $4,000 to reach by Dec. 1st and need your help!

Congratulations to Jeaninne Kayembe and the rest of the PUC clan for winning the GRAND PRIZE in Magic Johnson’s WHAT INSPIRES YOU VIDEO CONTEST!

Watch our contest videos with Jeaninne, Shaniqua, Devon & Kevin, B.J. and Kianni, Rachel and Justin, and Ashely NOW! (click on their name to watch their video)

Magic’s crew came to Philly in August to conduct a series of brief video interviews with some of our organizers and young leaders to put up on their website for their national video competition.  Since then, we just recieved the amazing news that Jeaninne’s video was selected as the 1st place winner (meaning she is going to get flown out to L.A. to meet Magic himself and rep. PUC!!!!!), and the even better news that their foundation has offered to support us in the purchase and installation of a giant hoop-house and Solar Power system!    We cannot thank the Magic Johnson Foundation enough for their unwavering support!

This summer, 2012, proved to be PUC’s second harvest…..and an extremely successful one at that. Having added our greenhouse and tripled our production space, we were able to get a jump start on the season and grow all kinds of vegetables, herbs, flowers, shrubs, fruits, and even mushrooms!!?!

Some of our most successful crops this season were Tomatoes (red, green, yellow, and cherry), Peppers (bell, green, cayenne, and the HOTTEST Jalapeños ever!!!), Basil, Mint, Thyme, Parsley, Okra, Tomatillos, Swiss Chard, Beas, Beans, Osage Oranges, Sunflowers, 4 varieties of sprouts, and thanks to Keem….our youngest planter (4 years old)….Corn and Cantaloupes!

As our crops have grown, so too has the bio-diversity of the environment around us, as well as the leadership abilities of the youth in our community. Every day, more and more bees, butterflies, ladybugs, kids, and pollinators of all kinds have swarmed the farm and spread pollen, seeds, ideas, and energy throughout the neighborhood.  (We have found some really rare species of grasshoppers and praying mantises which is a really great sign for the overall health of our space).

Our most consistent kids come to the farm almost every day now, and are blossoming into incredible young leaders.  They are beginning to give their own tours of the garden, participate as leaders in our orientations and work days, and take on daily responsibilities in maintaining the farm all on their own. We can’t wait to see how much more they grow in the next few years!

Check out this amazing NEW VIDEO made about PUC by Saeed Brisco as apart of the POPYYN program highlighting our work in North Central Philly and our April 1st block party!

PUC has faced a great deal of adversity since our April 1st block party. Inconsistent weather, vandalism, and the loss of some of our core members have tested the moral and resilience of our young organization. But with the unveiling of summer, we have proven ourselves to be living examples of the mantra: “what doesn’t break you makes you stronger”. We have not only overcome the obstacles in our way, but have emerged a much stronger and more unified group, and have made significant strides in developing our farm and overall program.

Over the past two months, we have re-built our greenhouse and stacked it with all kinds of plants propagated by students at Temple’s Ambler campus, completed our composting tunnel system around the greenhouse including our first worm compost bin, built a 500 ft. fence and growing wall to enclose the garden, and cleared a 700 square ft. section of our land to use as the next section of our production space.

On June 1st, we celebrated our progress with all of the partners that we have collaborated with this year. Over the course of the day, we hosted over 300 people of all ages at Life Do Grow as apart of a ceremony that included music, dancing, mural painting, the Sankofa Rights of Passage closing Libation, workshops, and the construction of 4 new raised beds as the kick off to the next phase of expansion and summer program.

We have learned from many of our mistakes, and have grown because of them. Now, we plan to carry this surge of energy into the summer as we expand our farm, develop Dev’s shop across the street into our indoor base of operations, strengthen the bonds we have built with our partners, and harvest the young leaders in our community to become the next generation of PUC organizers.

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.