Bridging Past and Present at CommUnity Garden
Philadelphia, PAIn the final project of my Ecological Urbanism class, my team developed two sets of proposals for our partnering organization, CommUnity Garden @ the Creek, and the broader Mill Creek neighborhood. For my role in ideation, I proposed that CommUnity explore opportunities for a Mill Creek community garden network - coordinating across community gardens/farms and their leadership throughout the neighborhood. This network could work towards a collection of shared resources, cultivating new community leaders, hosting events like shared harvests or neighborhood cleanups, and sharing outreach mechanisms for growing the future of the gardens. I also suggested programming for a barren wall on the side of a building within the site: projecting a series of family-friendly movie screenings. At a kickoff event for the series, I recommended screening films that honor the history of Mill Creek and West Philadelphia, featuring relevant Precious Places documentaries from the Scribe Video Center, an organization local to West Philadelphia. During this event, Scribe could also encourage community members to apply to create their own Precious Places film for Mill Creek. This programming was intended to put the CommUnity Garden on the map, activating the space.