In early June I was fortunate enough to attend the American Community Gardens Conference in New York City. Attended by over 1,000 people this four day event was hosted by New York City’s Green Thumb program with partners Denver Urban Gardens (DUG) and the American Community Gardens Association (ACGA). It was a fabulous conference filled with inspiring keynote speakers, thought provoking panel discussions and numerous educational workshops.
The highlight of the conference was keynote speaker, Robin Wall Kimmerer, author of Braiding Sweetgrass. Robin is a Potawatomi botanist, author, and the director of the Center for Native Peoples and the Environment at the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry. Her talk on the restoration of ecological communities and the restoration of our relationships to the land was truly inspiring. It left me full of hope for the future if we continue to build community and care for our planet. I was also fortunate enough to have a one on one conversation with her at a separate function. We discussed the importance of sharing indigenous wisdom and learning from our First Nations peoples as ways to heal our world and prevent further climate destruction. I highly recommend taking a look at any of Robin’s talks or reading her books as she is a wonderful writer and brilliant speaker.
Robin Wall Kimmerer
I last visited the USA in 2022 as part of my Churchill Fellowship to study the community garden networks around the world. It was wonderful to reconnect, face to face, with so many of the people I met with on that journey and catch up on the latest happenings in the American community garden world. Many new connections were established as well with organisations such as Farm Philly, Franklin Park Conservatory and Botanical Gardens, the LA Community Garden Council and so many more.
The CEO’s of Green Thumb, DUG and the LA Community Garden Council all joined me for a panel discussion on organisational models that was very interesting. Our organisations ranged from Green Thumb and DUG’s staff base of up to 50 to CGA’s volunteer led model and LA’s sole employee, Omar. It’s quite amazing what organisations can achieve with so little in the way of resourcing. A keynote panel discussing community gardens as critical infrastructure for thriving cities proved interesting and another on how to unite and amplify an abundant community garden movement was very thought provoking. The United States have over 30,000 community gardens that are supported by an estimated 3.6 million gardeners producing 98 million pounds of food annually so the capacity for collaboration across the country is quite astounding. And there are so many organisations to support the movement – quite different to the Australian context.
A workshop on scaling community gardens used the LA Community Garden Council’s model of supporting 40+ community gardens with only one employee as the stage to share how they leverage digital tools to accomplish this. Another panel discussion on partnerships led by Brooklyn Botanic Garden’s Nina Browne was also enlightening. There are so many opportunities for collaboration in the community gardening world; we just have to take a moment to stop and look around to see potential partners on every corner.
All in all, it was a fabulous conference and a big congratulations goes out to the organisers and their teams of passionate people that made it all happen. I look forward to being able to attend again in the future and continue to learn from, share and collaborate with our wonderful American friends.
