Written by SonyaJoy Key, Community Engagement Manager
What could happen if the soil beneath our feet were healthy? What if all youth could safely plunge their eager fingers into the soil to plant a seed, find a worm, or harvest a head of lettuce?
Sabrina Floyd, Rip Van Winkle Apartments Social Worker and Lead Garden Instigator.
Environmental injustice impacts most Poughkeepsie growers who labor toward food sovereignty, our ability to exercise the right to healthy foods that are culturally relevant. Years of improperly disposed of waste and degraded building materials can leave city soils too toxic to grow food. Yet we need fresh food everywhere we can get it, especially to thrive during COVID-19.
Just 4 months ago, residents of Rip Van Winkle Apartments, known as RIP, would exit the building to see a grassy expanse of lawn. Now a raised bed community garden greets residents with a cheerful expanse of tomatoes, kale, cucumbers, sunflowers and so much more! A project like this takes a lot of hands to turn the wheel, and a hub for the spokes to turn from. Sabrina Floyd, social worker at RIP, is that central hub.
Sabrina is the kind of person you talk to for an hour when you intended to just say a quick hello. On top of her regular work connecting the community of residents at Rip Van Winkle Apartments to local services and providing informal counseling on subjects from health to education, Sabrina decided to tackle the vision and installation of a community garden on site. She already had a hunch based on how many residents picked up fresh produce from the weekly PFP Food Share and Food Power @ Home meal kit distributions, that a garden would be well received.
In May, Sabrina surveyed the entire building to see who would get involved if a garden could be established with resident support. I drafted a garden plan that included a welcoming, multi-generational garden space with built-in benches for seniors or those with less mobility to sit while gardening.
Jacob and Rakim, summer interns at PFP, unload hundreds of pounds of rich soil into the beds.
In July, an 18 bed garden was installed by contractor Michael Conti. Poughkeepsie Farm Project staff and interns hauled compost, painted beds, and installed over 300 plants donated by PFP. Dozens of RIP youth residents stopped by to support, as well as Perfect 10, a girl’s empowerment organization based in Hudson, NY. The garden went from start to finish in a little over 2 weeks!
PFP intern, Tania, transplants gold and red beet seedlings.
On September 30th, gardeners of all ages gathered for the first Harvest Day. Expert support was available from PFP Educator Lala Montoya and Greenhouse Manager André Luis de Oliveira Domingues. Families and friends harvested healthy heads of buttery lettuce, bunches of dino kale and the last tomatoes of the season. Some of the kids goofed around, seeing who could bite into a spicy pepper and keep their cool. Discovering how sunflower seeds grow was probably the most fun exploration that afternoon, only topped by the last garden hose water fight of the summer!
Lala, PFP Educator, gives some cucumber growing tips to a young RIP resident.
Summer beds flourishing!
Because of partnerships like these with Rip Van Winkle Apartments and visionaries like Sabrina, growing above the ground in healthy soil means that block by block, fresh produce is growing closer to home.