“Odd as I am sure it will appear to some, I can think of no better form of personal involvement in the cure of the environment than that of gardening. A person who is growing a garden, if he is growing it organically, is improving a piece of the world. He is producing something to eat, which makes him somewhat independent of the grocery business, but he is also enlarging, for himself, the meaning of food and the pleasure of eating.”
~ Wendell Berry, The Art of the Commonplace: The Agrarian Essays
Last Tuesday, October 15, our team met with City of Surrey Sustainability Coordinator to explore the idea of creating/supporting an umbrella organization for community gardens in Surrey. The meeting was attended by many others, from local gardens’ coordinators and urban planners to representatives from Can You Dig It , an organization that starts and supports new gardens in all greater Vancouver and Lower Mainland.
One of the meeting highlights was Richmond Food Security Society presentation as they act as umbrella organization for not only community gardens, but many other food-security related initiatives.
Here are some of the points brought up by the attendees:
Advantages of an umbrella organization:
- A go-to place for all who want to know, start or join a community garden
- May become source of tools, seeds, books, workshops, information and gardeners/garden coordinators social and networking hub
- Great for advocacy and marketing/distributing information about gardens’ benefits, needs, etc.
- Could represent gardens and gardeners for grants and other funding efforts
- Would improve city’s involvement while allowing for communities empowerment by becoming an independent body
Further questions/suggestions:
- A hub in each Surrey community, or one representing the South and one for the North may be healthier and easier to manage
- An independent organization may better represent everybody’s needs and concerns and would not depend on a specific organization’s funding or management
- In order to be fully democratic, membership would be optional (gardens not willing to become members can continue on their own)
- The umbrella’s board may have members from all member gardens and other stakeholders such as the local Food Action Coalition, community representatives involved in food production/education, etc.
Concerns:
- What would City involvement be? To what extent?
- Where the funding will come from?
- How can it better ensure that all the people who need/want to be part of community gardens are represented in this?
What would the functions of this “umbrella organization” be?
- Education centre: offer workshops on gardening, seed-saving, composting, etc. (to all members of the community, not just gardens’ members)
- Social centre: offer social events and meetings for community garden coordinators and committees and regular gardeners meet and share information and resources or just socialize
- Centralized database: for current gardens and their services/resources and to manage members’ applications and waiting lists
- Centralize website/social-media/newsletter: to minimize gardens committees’ work and easy the access to information to all the members of the community, not just gardeners or members
- Tool, gardening books and seed library: for members to use and exchange/donate
- Advocacy and support: for emergent community gardens
- Formal representation for access to funding
- Other?
“The greatest change we need to make is from consumption to production, even if on a small scale, in our own gardens. If only 10% of us do this, there is enough for everyone. Hence the futility of revolutionaries who have no gardens, who depend on the very system they attack, and who produce words and bullets, not food and shelter.”
~ Bill Mollison
“When I go into the garden with a spade, and dig a bed, I feel such an exhilaration and health that I discover that I have been defrauding myself all this time in letting others do for me what I should have done with my own hands”. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson
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