The Philadelphia Urban Creators

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.

,

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.

This Saturday, we held a Block Party on Shaniqua’s street at 12th & Huntington. This was the first, of what will be many, P.U.C. events to reach out to the community surrounding our farm at 11th & York. There was food, face painting, socializing, and live music that lit up the block! Especially when the youngins took over from the band.

Amidst all the food and fun, we were able to pass out flyers about our mission, speak to a number of adults who came to the event about our organization and our thoughts for the educational farm, and spent hours playing with and getting to know the kids in the area. And although this was not a very formal event, it was very positive first opportunity at introduce ourselves and our ideas to the the residents in the neighborhood.

Temple News Video 9/28/10