Food Justice in the City

Intergenerational Contact: Being in Place

Pancho McFarland and Kortney Craigmiles McFarland

               
One of the more tangible benefits of community gardening in the city is the ongoing contact between the generations.  City dwellers often lament the ever-increasing generation gap, which can be seen as related to the loss of ethnic distinctiveness and lack of self-determination.  The only way to maintain tradition, ethnicity, autonomy, and resilience is for current generations to be present for the next generation; Youth will inherit responsibility for the sustenance and maintenance of our community gardens.  Working in a community garden opens the door to intergenerational interaction.

                  One of the goals of the Green Lots Project is to increase contact between children, young adults, older adults and elders. One project, The Elders Garden Club at Roseland Victory Center, provides opportunities for elders, young adults, and middle-aged people to garden together, exchanging stories and otherwise communing.  They encourage youth to plant and mind tomatoes, corn, squash, beans, onion, peppers, okra, and collard green seeds and seedlings. In this manner, culturally specific crops and general knowledge of gardening is maintained and exchanged.  Clearing and preparation of the raised beds for crops is another occasion for sharing time, effort, seeds, and wisdom.

                  A second Green Lots Project site has facilitated multigenerational contact.  The Roseland Community Peace Garden involves university students of all ages, families, teens, grammar school kids, middle-aged people, and elders.  On Saturday afternoons during spring and early summer, a dozen or so people (sometimes more than 20) cleared, till, plant, weed, build, water and otherwise maintain the communal garden.  Neighbors contribute water, someone else plays a drum that becomes an impromptu orchestra of children led by their elder, while others shovel soil into wheelbarrows and cart them off to planting beds built by still another mixed generational group.  At Roseland Community Peace garden, an intergenerational, mixed-class, mixed-race communitas grew and flourished. This is food justice in action.

                  The fruits of shared labor have included to date (June 26, 2010): Two harvests of collard greens; one of kale and radishes; several harvests of broccoli including daily pickings by the evening watering crew; and the sharing of self-edifying labor and stories within a newly developed community.  The space of the garden is communal and inviting rather than private and excluding; the work of tending soil and plants facilitates the development of a small community and strengthens the prospect of food sovereignty for the next generation.