Non-profit organizations: the greening of Philadelphia
The role of the Neighborhood Garden Association is an interesting one. Gardening in Philadelphia is “guerilla gardening,” as Skip Weiner puts it. Community members begin gardening on abandoned plots, without knowing too much about who owns the land. Often times and until recently, guerilla gardening got off the hook and land owners did not stop the gardening from happening. However, there have been cases where the owners sell the land to developers. In this case, the gardeners have no power. Then comes the role of the NGA. The NGA buys properties so that community members can garden on legally purchased land. This organization owns 29 plots in Philadelphia. The organization does not interfere with the leadership of the gardens– this is left up to individual community members of each garden. Where does the NGA get its money? Good question. I will ask Terry.
Urban Tree Connection: www.urbantreeconnection.org/ On Wednesday, Ari and I visited the home of Skip Weiner, who lives in a historic home in NW Philly. What a beautiful home. It’s from 1690, I believe. It used to be the home of William Penn’s doctor, and was the only structure on 100 acres of land. There was nothing else from that house to east to the Schuylkill or south to the Philadelphia Zoo. Imagine that! wow…
Skip started his organization, the Urban Tree Connection, which works with gardeners and schools and soup kitchens in greening Philadelphia. He was on the front cover of the April issue of Grid Magazine, Philadelphia’s very own sustainability magainze. www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/redflag/gridphilly_200904/#/0 He gave us permission to visit 5 more gardens. Thank you, Skip!
June 7th, 2009 at 9:05 pm
I checked out the Grid Philly magazine, which was awesome! Thanks so much for that link. Do you know how often it is published? Once a month? Also, I applied to work for Skip Wiener at the Urban Tree Connection, but there were no jobs available
Anyway, I felt that the article was inspiring. I liked how they talked about gardening as important avenue for community organization and cohesion. And that is what is so wonderful about gardening: you educate youth about the environment and nutrition, you produce healthy produce, and you foster community engagement and cohesion. Thanks for doing this blog it’s awesome!
June 11th, 2009 at 1:37 pm
Cec, I’m very impressed and inspired your work and its mission- makes me remember community service day with ISLES in Trenton. You should get in touch with Colin’s Dad to figure out more ways to partner and best practices etc. Keep me posted on the updates!
June 14th, 2009 at 10:23 pm
hello:)
i am organizing a non profit program for children with incarcerated parents. i would LOVE to include a community garden, or even just participation in a community gardn. how do i go about doing that????
blackambition1978@yahoo.com
thanx!!
June 25th, 2009 at 3:29 am
Hello,
I am very much happy and impressed about the effort that you have taken such keen and nice initiatives. Keep it up because the world need more people like you. The gardening is very much important to fight with dangerous gases that are spoiling ozone layer. Every house should have a home garden to eliminate pollution.