Turning Vacant Lots into Community Hubs
Across Western New York, over 100 gardens can be found in unexpected places. With the support and partnership of Grassroots Gardens WNY, neighbors and community members have transformed vacant and abandoned lots into spaces that help improve community relationships; offer opportunities to grow organic, culturally-relevant vegetables to address food apartheid; and nurture bodies, minds, and spirits.
Grassroots Gardens WNY (GGWNY) exists to facilitate the visions of community members seeking to make physical and social change through community and school gardens. The organization's greatest point of pride is that the creation of each garden is driven by the diverse interests and cultures of the local residents that the space serves. Annually, their network yields over 35,000 pounds of produce and actively engages more than 2,000 residents on previously vacant urban land.
In 2014, GGWNY recognized an opportunity to expand their work to include the development and stewardship of school gardens, and since then has grown the program from three to nearly 30 school gardens in the City of Buffalo! Their ability to expand the program can be credited in large part to support from the Environmental Protection Fund (EPF) through the NYS Conservation Partnership Program, which has allowed Grassroots Gardens WNY to explore and strengthen school garden programs by supporting both the internal capacity of the organization through staff and policy development, and has funded innovative partnerships with environmental education providers.
Continuing on that success, in 2021, the organization was officially accredited as a land trust, allowing GGWNY to begin developing their capacity to purchase, hold, and protect long-term community gardens that serve as community anchors in perpetuity, while also growing their ability to make permanent infrastructure improvements in the gardens. Through this process, funding from the EPF has continued to be a huge support in garden improvements by facilitating the installation of spigots, which addresses water access issues for gardeners and neighbors.
In recent years, GGWNY has spearheaded many additional innovative projects, including an accessibility improvement project that added wheelchair access matting, benches, and standing raised beds to address mobility barriers in gardens; facilitated the creation of a Therapeutic Garden Task Force that develops and advocates for increased programming leveraging the mental health and therapeutic benefits of urban greenspaces; and explored the use of heavy metal remediation in soil with the use of mycelium in partnership with University at Buffalo researchers. To learn more about Grassroots Gardens' work, visit grassrootsgardens.org.