Community Gardens Spring to Life
Eric Ortner
North Buffalo Rocket / West Side Times
City of Buffalo Building Inspector volunteers Dave Grundy and Kevin Luthringer drive a stake that secures one of eight wooden flower beds for a community garden being constructed on Massachusetts Street photo: Eric Ortner
It is the end of May 2000, and that means people are ankle deep in mud planting their gardens. This year though, there is a lot more gardening due to some dedicated volunteers. Volunteer organizations have been working hard to clean up the vacant lots strewn across the West Side by creating community gardens.
During the first few weekends of May, members of Buffalo State College, Grassroots Gardens of Buffalo, The West Side Business and Taxpayers Association, New West Village Association, and West Side N.H.S. converged at 14th and Connecticut Streets. Other projects have been springing up all over the Niagara District.
One particularly interesting project began to take shape on Saturday, May 20. A city owned vacant lot on Massachusetts Avenue near Shields started to be transformed into a community garden. Growing Buffalo, a group of volunteer City of Buffalo housing inspectors, constructed large raised flower beds out of wooden timbers. Eventually the raised beds will be filled with vegetables.
Nancy Blundell, one of the masterminds behind the project commented, "A month ago, this wasn't even an idea, and now in another month, it will be beautiful."
Although this project was conceived relatively recently, the building inspectors have been thinking about it for quite some time. Jack Plevniak, one of the building inspectors said, "We got together last year and decided we wanted to do something with the vacant properties. This is actually the second project we've worked on. There's 12 of us. Basically what we wanted to do is challenge the residents and City Hall to get into the process."
One City Hall official who didn't need to be challenged to get involved in the greening of Buffalo was Niagara District Councilmember Dominic Bonifacio. He was able to get the city to lease the vacant lot to the Massachusetts Neighborhood Outreach Center for $1. Mr. Bonifacio was keeping busy, using a shovel to turn over some soil in the base of the beds while the building inspectors constructed the beds' walls. Eileen Welborn, who is Executive Director of the Massachusetts Outreach Center said, "We've never had a Councilmember like Bonifacio before. One that's not afraid to get his hands dirty."
An extremely affordable lease agreement was helpful in bringing this project to fruition. However, Grassroots Gardens, who sponsors community gardens all over the city, was able to donate $4,000 to the project. This funding was used to purchase the wood and other supplies needed to construct the 8 raised beds.
Once the garden's construction is finally completed, the neighborhood's youth will have the opportunity to do most of the work in the garden. After some brainstorming, the kids aged 12-14 dubbed themselves "Big Seeds" and "Little Sprouts." The youth in this West Side neighborhood are really no strangers to gardening. In 1995 their work around the playground in front of The Massachusetts Outreach Project won them first place in the Public Spaces category of the Buffalo In Bloom Competition.
Yet, this project offers even more benefits than keeping the youth busy. Sally Cunningham, from the Cornell Cooperative Extension has become involved in the garden. She is working on a program called Garden Mosaic. Garden Mosaic is taking place in five cities across the United States.
Garden Mosaic and Cornell Cooperative Extension have received a small Sustainable Agriculture Research and Extension (SARE) Grant. Ms. Cunningham explained, "The idea is to take youth and get them involved in research and study with the elders of different countries in order to learn how they gardened in the old world...We'll interview, map and draw how they garden, and what they grow. We'll look at sustainable methods. How do they get rid of their pest problems and improve soil. What garden methods did they use before there was Ag Way and Home Depot."
One gentleman from Somalia has already told Sally Cunningham that he would like to help out with the project. However, Sally would still like to hear from other seniors that have immigrated to the United States and have a garden based on Old World principles. Garden Mosaic should prove to be very beneficial to area youth. Some of them may be able to use the experience gained to go onto careers in landscaping. In addition, Garden Mosaic will forge relationships between the youth and seniors in the community.
Due to the industrious efforts of Niagara District Councilmember Dominic Bonifacio, as well as other hard working volunteers, projects such as this one will be sprouting all over the area. Future community gardens will be situated on Grant Street, Orton Place and on Shields Street.
