Visions of a Healthy City

Here’s a talk given by Greg Reader at a recent Greening Sacred Spaces workship on forming neighbourhood networks.

Visions of Healthy Cities

Hill Street Community Garden

(By Emma Cubitt)

The idea was initially given to me to start a garden in the (Kirkendall)

neighbourhood that was faith-based, and in fact I have had my eye on

this city-owned underused parcel of land for several years. Since

then, I have learned that other interested gardeners have had their

eyes on the site as well, but it does take a lot of determination to

get such a project started. The catalyst that helped move my idea

forward was meeting Katrina VandenBerg, a recent graduate of Redeemer

college with experience working for Green Venture in their community

garden and organizing kids programs. We learned that we both dreamed

about starting a garden in the neighbourhood, and by putting both of

our collective experiences and skills together we started to hatch the

idea of the HSCG.

We both decided that the Hill St. site was the right place to be, and

then we started to think about who would be interested in partnering.

Last summer I had helped organize a group called “Backyard Theology on

Tap” which was a gathering of people from various churches (First CRC,

New City, St. John the Evangelist, and Central Presbyterian – maybe

others) to welcome speakers on various philosophical and cultural

topics. Our first speaker was a friend named Jack Van Dorp, a recent

planning grad who had written his thesis on community gardens in

Hamilton. Ironically, Jack spoke about how churches could help start a

community garden, and I think several of the people who were there

that day are now part of the HSCG. By advertising for Backyard

Theology on Tap in the bulletins of these churches we began to build

relationships with these neighbourhood churches, and it was easy to

open up and continue these partnerships for the HSCG.

Last fall we put together an informative brochure about our vision for

the HSCG and invited all the local (i.e. within a 5 minute walk)

churches & neighbourhood associations to partner with us (we noted

that this meant being an active proponent by way of communicating to

the congregations about the garden, but not a financial obligation).

We had the five churches sign up right away (the four churches from

Backyard Theology on Tap plus First Unitarian) while I had followed up

with the other churches & synagogue in the neighbourhood a few times I

didn’t hear a definitive “yes” from these other groups, and so we

decided to try again next year once the garden was more than just an

idea.

Katrina and I started meeting with Cllr. McHattie (who has been a huge

help) and City staff to create an agreement for the lease of the land.

We asked First CRC to be the “primary partner” which means that we get

liability insurance through their insurer, our finances are filtered

through the church’s account (which means we have charitable status

for donations), and the church has signed the license agreement with

the City. Their role is HUGE, and we are very very thankful.

My husband, Graham, and Crystle Numan joined Katrina and I in January

and together we were able to negotiate with the City (which took

several meetings and many emails), advertise, fundraise, grant-write,

meet with adjacent neighbours, and eventually design and implement the

raised bed garden design. We easily have each put in over a hundred

hours by the end of this process – it is no small task!

We advertised for gardeners through the partnering churches,

neighbourhood association emails, Locke St. businesses, and posters on

hydro poles. We easily had our first 30 gardener household signed up

within a couple weeks, and then a hefty waiting list. Since then we

have asked gardeners to share their plots if they did not need the

entire 200 ft2 and now we have about 40 different households in the

garden. We built the raised beds in mid April with over 100

volunteers, including nearly all the gardeners, their friends &

family, and volunteers from the partnering churches. Three of the

pastors were available to participate in the opening ceremony before

the garden raising day, which included a blessing of the land and

future relationships.

The HSCG has been very blessed by the partnership of these churches,

the approx. $8000 in gift-in-kind donations we have received to built

the gardens and the shed, a grant, the many volunteers who have put

their backs into it, and our fantastic group of gardeners. The

gardeners all live within walking distance of the garden, and about

half are affiliated with the partnering churches. It is a very diverse

group of singles, couple & families with very different lifestyles,

incomes, and backgrounds. Many are new to Hamilton (not immigrants per

se, but new to Hamilton in the past 5 years or so).

We have a lot of ideas for how the garden can be used as a “third

space” for community building, as well as raising healthy food. I

would recommend anyone interested check out our web site

(www.hillstreetgarden.org) for pictures from the past few months and

other info about where we got our donations, etc. There is a tab on

there where you can sign up as a supporter to receive emails every

other week with updates on garden activities. There are many more

people involved in the garden than just the 40 households.

Feel free to stop by any time, but Wednesday

evenings are best to meet many of the gardeners (this evening has been

set aside by many for the summer as gardening time).

For more info go to http://hillstreetgarden.org/