“To grow your own food gives you power and dignity. You know exactly what you’re eating because you grew it. It’s good, it’s nourishing and you did this for yourself, your family and your community.” —Karen Washington
Since 1985, Karen Washington has strived to make the Bronx and NYC at large a better place to live, spending decades promoting urban farming as a way for all New Yorkers to access fresh, locally grown food—and inspiring countless people as she’s grown into an advocate and leader in the field. Now, filmmaker Kate Walker is working to document Washington’s story and its connection to the larger social justice movement.
Bronx community activist Karen Washington remembers when there were so many vacant lots in the Bronx that the borough looked like “a war zone.”
Karen Washington smiles in The Garden of Happiness in the Bronx.
Over the years, some were turned into community gardens, primarily in an effort to beautify and reclaim neighborhoods devastated by New York’s fiscal crisis of the 1970s. Over time, the dedicated volunteers who created these urban oases realized they could provide so much more than simple beauty. Community gardens became centers for community organization, expressions of cultural identity, and sources of fresh fruit and vegetables for a population in dire need of healthy food.
Washington recently sat down with us to tell us about her experiences working to keep urban gardening alive and well in the Bronx, a mission she’s been on since 1985.
A NYBG Board member and founding member of NYBG’s Bronx Green-Up program, Washington has helped dozens of neighborhoods build their own community gardens. She joins a panel of other urban agriculture experts in our Growing the Urban Farm Symposium on November 18.
Few have had such immeasurable impact on the lives of the people of the Bronx like local resident Karen Washington. As an NYBG Board Member and an urban farmer, she’s transformed this borough’s landscape for so many local residents, taking neglected city lots and using them as the foundation for verdant and prolific community gardens. Each new greenspace she champions is a testament not only to the work she’s put in over the last 30 years, but the care and effort of the many people she’s inspired to help create these sources of food, happiness, and livelihood.
For everything Karen’s done, it only makes sense for us to give back, and help her out in 2015 as she competes for the NationSwell AllStar Award—a $10,000 honor that will benefit her ongoing work to beautify the lives and locales of this incredible borough.
NationSwell’s competition puts Karen up against the country’s greatest innovators and builders in their respective communities, and all it takes is a vote each day (it resets every 24 hours, so try to vote around the same time from day to day!) to keep her in the running for this important recognition. Better yet, it’s easy to participate—just head over to the NationSwell site; have a look at the video about Karen, her background, and her work; and cast your vote at the bottom of the page. You can check in once each day to revote, which will add up to quite a swell of support if we all chip in!
Bronx Green-Up Tours, Harvest Fair on Tap this Weekend
Karen Washington is a community gardener and activist. As part of The Edible Garden final weekend, she will lead a tour of the Garden of Happiness.
When I was 8 years old I used to watch the farm report before Saturday morning cartoons and wish and hope that one day I’d have my own farm.
And now, in a way, I do. It may not be what some might think of as a traditional farm, but it’s the closest thing possible: a community garden.
I turned my passion for gardening into community gardening and activism—they go hand-in-hand—over 20 years ago. I want people to be aware that they can grow their own food wherever they are. I live in a low-income neighborhood, and I help educate people to go back to the land, because our grandparents and great-grandparents did not go to a supermarket or grocery store to buy their food; they grew it themselves.
The interest in community gardening has grown in recent years as people are starting to connect their health issues with not knowing where their food comes from. Child obesity—I mean diabetes at the age of 12 or 13!—wasn’t happening to our grandparents or great-grandparents. So now the younger generation is really sitting down and speaking to their elders and having that conversation. And with over 600 community gardens in New York City that you can join for free, the combination creates an atmosphere for people to really want to grow their own food.
At my garden—I belong to the Garden of Happiness on Prospect Avenue between East 181st and 182nd Streets in the Bronx—we have 30 families. Each is assigned a specific plot—the plot can be 5 by 6 feet, 10 by 15 feet—to grow what they want. The Botanical Garden’s Bronx Green-Up program and the NYC Department of Parks & Recreation’s GreenThumb program supply us with lumber for raised beds, tools, plants, seeds, soil, and compost. We bring our sweat and our hard labor.
