Garden connects local students to community
Christine Trang | 5-20-2010 | Comments |
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Six months ago, Kevin Crawford, a student at Morningside High School, noticed trash scattered on a plot of land just across the street from his school.“Before, this was just an empty lot,” Crawford said. “There was trash, broken glass, cocaine pipes and used condoms, just some really bad things littered across the property.”
Now, the scene is different. Crawford, community members, fellow students and organizations in the Inglewood neighborhood partnered with the Social Justice Learning Institute at the beginning of the year to create the Empowerment Community Garden, one they hope will serve as a positive alternative to some of the challenges youth face.
“This is a student-initiated, student-led garden,” D’Artagnan Scorza, director of the Social Justice Learning Institute, said. “We, as adults, bring some of the skills and the resources, but the students are the ones who accomplish their goals.”
Within five months, students created plots, cleaned them out and planted a variety of fruits, herbs and vegetables. As part of an ongoing community effort to improve the campus through various community events, more than several dozen people gathered at the plot of land Thursday to plant the garden’s first tree.
Thursday's event was one in an ongoing series hosted by the Social Justice Learning Institute to educate the public about the project, provide input on future plans and inform people about the importance of healthy eating.
"The obesity level in Inglewood is very bad right now, so we want to try to get people to realize what healthy eating is all about,” Crawford said. “You can eat healthy, and still have fun with it because, when you think about it, planting healthy food here will contribute to your health, the community, the people we love.”
But Nancy Cabada, a student at Morningside High School, said the process did not always come easily.
“When we first started, the grass was high, the dirt was high,” Cabada said. “We had to get buckets and clear some of the dirt, because there was just so much of it.”
The project cost about $15,000. The money went to garden tools, the turnover of land, and food and refreshments for events, among other things. In the future, the group plans to hold charity events and fundraisers to raise an extra $10,000, because “there are still a lot of projects we want to do,” Scorza said.But Councilman Ralph L. Franklin said money is not the concern.
“I am tired of the killings and the drive-by shootings that occur, I am tired of the differences among the ethnicities in our community,” Franklin said. “I don’t care if you’re black, brown or white, because the main thing is, we now have this community garden, and it is a common bond, a common denominator.”
Most agreed the community garden would serve as a bridge between the students and the community.
“In December, I took my students downtown, and we helped plant a garden for homeless people,” Rashawndra Woods, a teacher at Morningside High School, said. “Then, the students said they wanted one of their own at Morningside, and even though I did not know what would happen, I wanted to make it happen so that the students could work with the community on a project.”
But despite everyone’s shared goal of creating a bridge between students and the community, Crawford said the mere existence of the garden is what matters most.
“You don’t see many gardens around here anymore,” Crawford said. “People can come here now and do something positive for the community.”
Tags: christine trang empowerment community garden morningside high school social justice learning institute south los angeles