meeting notes: 10/25/07

Meeting Notes (10/25/07)

Potential Product(s)

1. a community gardens pamphlet

2. a survey (or two), first focusing on the visibility of community gardens, then on more details

3. Meeting to Discuss our findings with stakeholders; to explore what community gardening has been and what planners and policy makers want it to be?

Questions:

Survey: What information are we gathering? Access (transportation, walking distance, joining)? What questions matter?

Pamphlet: Our work – locations, who’s involved

Original Premise:

Are there differences between “Grassroots” community gardens and those that are city-supported?

-gardening as the process -gardens as space - gardeners as actors

Questions:

Are community gardens basically invisible?

Why are community gardens invisible?

Why does visibility matter? (implication for policy, land use, public opinion)

Hypotheses:

1. Community gardens want to be invisible (“private world,” squatters – under the radar)

2. Community gardens don’t want to be invisible, but there is a set of constraints or problems that make them invisible (outreach challenge).

3. Community gardens aren’t really invisible, we just haven’t discovered how they’re seen through this process or approach.

Assumptions:

1. Community gardening is part of sustainability and green cities.

2. Community gardening happens because people are motivated about sustainability. (or for necessity: food, to work in the ground)

Gardens We’ve Considered:

Kendall

Backyard Garden (Melanie’s Landlord)

People’s Garden Project

Ithaca Community Garden

Ithaca Children’s Garden

Cornell Garden Plots (Freese Road)

Dilmun Hill

Next steps: survey people about their knowledge of the gardens: are they aware?

Map gardens using concentric rings (1 block, 3 blocks, 5 blocks…) and plot areas of awareness.

Survey Format:

Page one of survey:

Who we are

Why we’re doing the research

Signature Block

Where is your closest community park?

Where is your closest community green space?

Where is your closest community garden?

** use Liechert scale to rate these questions (1-3 blocks, 4-6, 6-9, 10+, don’t know)

--- Want to see: How the public differentiates (if at all) between these three items, how that plays into visibility, and whether the public considers community gardens to be green space.

Page two of survey:

What is the street intersection closest to your home?

Scaled questions/further information

***these questions must be answerable for those who are unaware of community gardens nearby.

Could develop a second survey to administer to those who seem aware of nearby community gardens to obtain more information about their impressions of the gardens.

For each garden point: collect at least 20 initial surveys

Could try to get garden member’s addresses from community garden leaders.

Community Based Participatory Research

What is "Participatory Research" and why is it valuable?

"To be effective, researchers need feedback from the community about its needs," says Dr. Carol Horowitz of Mt. Sinai School of Medicine in New York. "It is important that community groups be clear about their priorities. It's really common sense," she says. "Don't go into a community to fix something unless you've asked them what they need. You can't fix people—you have to work with people."

How Is Community Based Participatory Research (CBPR) Different?

In CBPR, the community memebers play a direct role in the design and conduct of the research study.

This process is accomplished by:

• Bringing community members into the study as partners, not just subjects.
• Using the knowledge of the community to understand problems and to design activities to improve interventions.
• Connecting community members directly with how the research is done and what comes out of it.
• Providing immediate benefits from the results of the research to the community that participated in the study.
• In CBPR, community members are also involved in getting the word out about the research and promoting the use of the research findings. This involvement can help improve the quality of life and health care in the community by putting new knowledge in the hands of those who need to make changes.

This was taken from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality website: http://www.ahrq.gov/research/cbprrole.htm#different

Local gov't contacts for Team Garden

Potential gov’t. contacts for community garden project:

Natural Areas Commission:

Chair: Zev Ross

Planning & Development Board:

Chair: John Schroeder

Ithaca Urban Renewal Agency:

Chair: Carolyn K. Peterson

Environment and Neighborhood Quality Committee:

Chair: Alderperson Robin Holtham Korherr

Planning & Economic Development Committee:

Chair: Alderperson Mary Tomlan

City Clerk’s Office: 108 Green Street, 607-274-6570

Planning & Development Department: 607-274-6550

Email: dgrunder@cityofithaca.org

Director: H. Matthys VanCort

more to come...

Team Garden: Where are we headed?

Ideas for project focus:

Primarily, we are interested in looking at the difference between
city-supported vs. spontaneous community gardens.

This interest has led us to focus on looking at the “roots” :-) of the garden – what were the founders’ original intentions for the garden? How does the original vision compare to what has taken place over the years and what will happen in the future?

It was brought up that it would be interesting to look at the (implied) mission of the gardens (that are intended for public use) regarding access. Which gardens (city-supported or spontaneous) appear to be more successful at being accessible to the community?

What elements define “success” of a community garden - from both the perspectives of the gardeners themselves and the surrounding community?

Methodology:

- Interviews and/or survey
o community gardeners
o non-gardeners in the local neighborhood
o home-gardeners in the local neighborhood

Through our work, our goal would be to find a common ground :-) between community gardeners (both in public-supported and spontaneous gardens) and city planners. We discussed a few potential “end-products” which, once determined, will help us narrow down the focus of our work.

Potential end products:

- to invite gardeners and city planners to a presentation of our findings
- to present our findings AND facilitate a community meeting between gardeners and planners - to write a paper on our findings (and try to publish?)

Some questions that came up:

- Should the community “control group” we use for comparison be home-gardeners or non-gardeners in the surrounding community?
- How are we defining “access”? Do we take a quantitative approach and examine (map) proximity to gardens from different income areas? Do we take a qualitative approach and interview local residents and ask them about their interest in their local community garden, and if they even know about it? Both?
- How is a community garden defined? If a community garden has exclusive membership, (whether it’s overt or implied) is it still considered a “community” garden?

Links: Photos and Children's Garden

The Link to Our Photobucket Album:
http://s227.photobucket.com/albums/dd78/teamgarden/

The Link to the Ithaca Children's Garden Page:
http://counties.cce.cornell.edu/tompkins/ithacachildrensgarden/index.html
(They also have a resource page which includes books and other children's gardens' websites)

Ithaca People's Garden Info

for Community Garden Project Team:

Here is more contact info and background on the People's Garden.

Amy Garbincus a.garbincus@verizon.net 277-0172 may be outdated
(see blurb below from an earlier time) early farmer supporter , knows a good piece of the story

Pastor Benson 272-1984 rbenson4@twcny.rr.com friendly, chatty,
enthusiastic pastor of the church

Josh Dolan key supporter, lives in neighborhood, in Ireland this month but
may respond to emails
rainbowwarrior14874@yahoo.com

Jhakeem Haltom 342-5323 -C key player, knows Elan well, and hasn't
responded to request yet, but don't give up


The People's Garden Project (PGP) is a volunteer organization that has established two community gardens in formerly empty lots at food pantry sites in Ithaca. Through these gardens the PGP is fostering community building, promoting urban gardens, increasing local food security, teaching gardening skills, and beautifying our neighborhoods.

The PGP was started in the spring of 2004 by a small group of people concerned about the accessibility of high quality, healthy food to all members of the community. Our mission is to create a local, sustainable, diverse, and accessible food system that biulds community food security. The PGP decreases dependence on government and corporate food sources and promotes community independence.

Through advocacy, gardens, education, and workshops, the PGP will encourage diversity; empower and strengthen community; promote good nutrition and health; and preserve the local environment for future generations.

During our first year the PGP set up a garden site at the Baptized Church of Jesus Christ at 412 First Street in Ithaca's Northside Neighborhood. The PGP has transformed an empty lot into a lush beautiful garden. The garden provides a place for residents of this racially and economically diverse neighborhood to be introduced to gardening and experience truly fresh food. The food grown at this site is distributed through the church's weekly food pantry to those in the community that need it. This site is also open to the community as a meeting space with benches and a birdbath so that people can sit and enjoy the garden's beauty.

The PGP has hosted a series of community events and workshops since its inception. Examples include: Introduction to Gardening, Composting, Nutrition, Container Gardening, and Food Preservation and has hosted community potlucks. The past two years we have held plant giveaways in which we collected vegetable seedling donations from various farms and gave them away to people in the Northside and Southside communities.

This past year we added another garden site which is located at the Red Cross Emergency Shelter located on Court Street.

Food travels on average, about 1,500 miles from farm to fork. This transportation incurs an unaccounted for cost on our food system, which effects the environment and nutritive value of the food we eat.
The fresher the food the more nutrients it possesses. Local production is less vulnerable to problems like fuel shortages, disruption of transportation systems, and natural disasters.
Additionally, increasing local food security helps the local economy and builds community connections.

Project Team Community Gardening

Welcome to the Community Gardening Team. Your first task is to get to know community gardening, and a few community gardens in Ithaca. You can get to know community gardening by listening/watching/reading the below backgrounders. You can get to know Ithaca Community Gardens by visiting their website. The second garden information is as follows :

People's Garden Project - (First Baptized Church of Christ, 412 1st st., Northside)

Jhakeem Haltom haltomj at gjr dot tstboces dot org 342-5323

Pastor Ronald Benson

Your Community Gardening Backgrounders are found at the following websites:

Machetes and Marigolds

American Community Garden Association
(scroll down to videos section)

Your resources for "ground-truthing" on Thurs the 6th will be found at the following websites:

Garden Mosaics Neighborhood Exploration

Garden Mosaics Garden Inventory

Read the instructions, download the forms, get photos, etc in advance of Thurs!! Remember, you are responsible for taking initiative-take the ball and run with it!