MIP Grant 2015: Trinity, Hermantown and St. Andrew’s, Cloquet / Sustainable Food Gardening at SONA. (Steve O’Neil Apartments in Duluth)

From Diane Piette, Christian Educator and Team Administrator, St. Andrew’s:

Duluth, Minn. – We could start with a hundred photos, many taken by the children of the SONA community, which would tell the story of this amazing project without any words. Photos showing (in March) the narrow, steep, city hillside around this apartment complex that is to be our “garden/play/outdoor classroom/family green space.” Still photos and short video clips (in April, May, June, and July) showing the collaborative work of SONA residents, staff, and other volunteers to create the structures, move the composted dirt, and plant the gardens; photos of the joy of watering, weeding, and discovering volunteer edibles from the rich compost soil; and photos of the joy in learning and harvesting, and in preparing and serving the harvest. And the best of the late summer and fall harvest is yet to come.

I will try to limit the photos and highlight the unique quality of SONA, of our partner agency CHUM, and of the two leaders within the SONA leadership who are the keystones of the education components and the community building and implementation for the successful start of the sustainable food gardening.

When we wrote this grant proposal:

The Steve O'Neil Apartments were nearing completion with occupancy beginning mid-December. The apartments will provide permanent supportive housing for 44 families who have experienced long-term or recurrent homelessness. A growing body of evidence from HUD, the Wilder Foundation, Urban Institute, the National Center for Family Homelessness, and others supports the effectiveness of permanent supportive housing to help families overcome the combination of long-term or recurrent homelessness and multiple barriers to stable housing. What makes the Steve O’Neil Apartments unique is CHUM’s focus on the wellbeing of the children.

When the gardening part of our involvement began in earnest this spring, the apartments are at capacity with 44 families and now includes 86 children; about 40% of the children in the 0-5 age group.

The innovation is providing resources for people in this new complex the means of providing food for themselves in their own space and working in community with a support group that assists along that path. It teaches community sustained agriculture - sharing as part of community. Cultivating sensory gardens gives the families a place to become centered and comfortable in their green space. Mary Lu Larsen, Community Support Coordinator at SONA, has been one of the key advocates. She stated: “Home base is incredibly healing and then to begin to add consistent and healthy quality food is amazing. As the bounty increased – the produce is incorporated into their meals, especially for those in the playgroups that are available for the 0-5 group four days per week. The children are outside in this beautiful space everyday.” She is passionate about helping others to get rooted in where food comes from, so that they may be nourished on many levels. “To go out and take care of our garden and harvest our food together is incredibly exciting.” She shared many stories of the healing and memories of the adult community members and the visible shift in the state of mind of some anxious little people.

The second key individual in the success of the gardening initiatives is Nahom Abegaze, Children's Program Coordinator. Nahom has been in deep conversation with the SONA resident community to assure that all of their ideas have been valued: from the charrettes prior to the project through the construction stages and ongoing. To Nahom: “Food is sacred. Food is medicine. First need is educating around food…what is food…what are we used to eating…stewarding the soil…culture of SONA gardening, preparing, sowing, growing, is not separate from setting down our own roots.”

“Food stories are a thick element of culture, about our society and this marginalized population. Food is central to every time our community comes together.” It happens often in this complex with a great community space with a community kitchen; including every Friday in the organized way of the official gardening afternoon for the children and families and for other advertised events for the whole SONA community.

So many volunteers have come forward to help with this project. We have been careful that at each workday, we have limited the number of outside helpers to not exceed the community stakeholders present. In addition to onsite laborers, in-kind support has been given in materials, plants, and labor of structures to be brought in and installed. Dan Kislinger has been our innovative architectural landscaper – drawing plans for the spaces and the support structures, leading the building and placements, defining the microclimate and limitations or possibilities of each space. He donated rhubarb plants. His connection to the Duluth Community Gardens has been valuable in securing plants, including Siberian Kiwi. Gloria Dei Lutheran Church asked to be called on to contribute. They built and donated the boxes and soil for six 2x2’ raised garden boxes (to add to our six 4x8’ raised beds capacity). One of their farmers donated tomato and cucumber plants, collard, and more. The Duluth Community vegetable of the year is the potato. The Rev. Cheryl Harder took community moms and children to the public library to get the donated potatoes for our garden (the children planted four kinds of potatoes). A local butterfly garden enthusiast helped to plant milkweed and to educate the children about butterfly gardens. Children brought their started seedlings home from school and planted them and continue to tend to them.

Nahom and Mary Lu each expressed gratitude that the technology elements of the grant were included, left in, and not the first cut. We all thank the grant committee for funding our request and all of the donations that enabled our funds to include the camera, computer, and software to document all of the stages of this educational project. The children have been avid photographers and are ready to make educational and fun gardening, instructive, anecdotal, storytelling video and presentation materials to sustain and record the beginning year of the project.

At a recent event, on Tues., July 21 – Tour of the Playscape and Garden and Dinner, Nahom asked 11-year-old Zoie to lead the tour. She was able to capably lead her group telling about the plant names and functions and detailing the recent planting for the butterfly garden. Nahom said that there are other kids we want to help so badly that still have barriers, but we have “come so far with the gardening and with the education.”

Nahom: “Food ought to be sacred. It’s the fabric of life with consequences. We need to act in a way to honor that – eat well, source locally, share knowledge and skills, be very generous, share abundance to whoever is willing and able to accept it. Tell others, I love you so much I want to share this with you.” And the gratitude is coming back with thank-yous: “Thanks for cooking; I really like what you’re doing with the garden – with kids.”