It might not be the time of year we associate with gardening but, Dr. King Elementary School in the Syracuse City School District is starting theirs soon. The Urban Garden Project is designed to bring better nutrition to students and let them know what crops they can grow by Thanksgiving. Organizer Mike Atkins explains that living conditions for city residents are tough.
“The poverty is just brutal! So, that’s why we feel this is important. We hope to do this (launch the new garden at Dr. King Elementary) and we hope to really get our one acre garden growing.”
Atkins says they’re looking for a contractor to clear land for the additional project. The Director of the Detroit Black Community Food Security Network, MalikYakini is in town and visited the Dr. King School. He says back home, they operate a seven acre farm that’s situated in a city park.
“It’s a huge success story. We have people who we’ve been able to employ, interns that we train each year, we recently unveiled a solar energy project at the farm where we’re generating electricity for our youths at the farm.”
So how does an urban garden get started in a community? Yakini says that happens differently in from place to place. However, they’re often a vehicle of empowerment.
“Young people are often without jobs and gardening, as it develops, and we develop the infrastructure and we begin to develop value added products that can become a way of generating income that can actually produce jobs. And, so many times, that’s a way to reach young people when they see a concrete way where they can produce something with their own hands that generates money.”
Yakini will speak Friday night about how race plays one of the factors that determines who has access to good food. His presentation is part of the Syracuse Food Justice Symposium. It will be held at All Saints’ Spiritual Renewal Center at 1342 Lancaster Ave in Syracuse at 7:15 PM. The symposium runs through Saturday.
