community garden update

Shannon Spurlock, Denver Urban Gardens Community Initiatives Coordinator

In the warming days of June 2014, a new community garden will come to life in Triangle Park (previously known as Eddie Maestas Park). Located at Park Avenue and Lawrence Street – and bordered on all three sides by major intersections and busy streets – this garden will be in the midst of a sizable population of Denverites experiencing homelessness, as well as related service providers including The Saint Francis Center (SFC), the Cornerstone Residences at The Saint Francis Center, The Denver Rescue Mission, The Samaritan House and Colorado Coalition for the Homeless. Each of these organizations works with individuals currently experiencing homelessness or those who are currently transitioning or have previously transitioned out of homelessness.

During a community meeting hosted last fall by project managers from Denver Parks and Recreation, many community members saw and provided meaningful input on the draft site plans for the newest iteration of Triangle Park. Glen Carney, a resident at the Cornerstone Residences at the SFC compiled a petition to have beehives at the garden and collected 80 signatures in support of this initiative. Accordingly, space for two beehives was added to the site plan in collaboration with EarthLinks, a local non-profit that provides a work program for people who are homeless or low-income. Further community feedback led to the addition of more raised beds to the garden, as well as ideas for integrating community-generated art. Tom Luehrs, Executive Director of The Saint Francis Center and long-time advocate for Denver’s homeless says, “I believe the garden on the site of Triangle Park can be a place of transformation, both for the space and ground, as well as those people in our community who are homeless. As the ground is transformed and yields its bounty, those who work the soil will be transformed by their hard work and dedication to this small plot of land.”

Luehrs’ sentiment is echoed throughout the neighborhood; it is hoped that the community garden will be a place for both physical and social change. The new community garden will serve many in the neighborhood who are food insecure: there will be plots for individuals and families as well as areas that are dedicated to the surrounding organizations and their ongoing work with their clients. The SFC plans, with the help of clients, to grow food to share with others both in their homes and in local shelters. It will be a priority that this community garden be a welcoming and inclusive space for all, with a significant number of the garden plots available for cultivation and care by individuals currently experiencing homelessness.

Though community partners and gardeners alike will be collectively working toward creating positive change at Triangle Park, everyone understands that this will be a challenging process that will take continual, intentional work for years to come. Carney, who is also serving as a garden leader at the community garden, says, “The project on a grand scale is certainly not the ‘be all to end all’ when we consider the obstacles to contend with. However, the positive influence of the effort to build or improve the community is visionary in scope.”

Carney alludes to the troubled past that has long been associated with Triangle Park. While it was meant to offer a place of rest for people waiting to receive services at one of the nearby centers and a gathering place for homeless individuals, it unfortunately became a place where a vulnerable population often suffered from violent crime and predatory drug dealers. Long-time resident and community activist John Hayden expressed, “My hope for the new community garden in Triangle Park is that it will transform a space that has been dangerous for the community into a space that is nurturing for the community. The members of our community who are experiencing homelessness have been particularly impacted by the condition of Triangle Park because they have to pass by it to access the nearby shelters. The homeless will see the greatest benefit from the changes to the park because in a very real sense the streets, sidewalks and parks are their home. Ensuring that these spaces are safe and nurturing is essential to helping those who are experiencing homelessness.”

The homeless will see the greatest benefit from the changes to the park because in a very real sense the streets, sidewalks and parks are their home. Ensuring that these spaces are safe and nurturing is essential to helping those who are experiencing homelessness.

Through the new community garden at Triangle Park, DUG, in partnership with local service providers, residents, and individuals experiencing or transitioning from homelessness, is actively working to create a community space that will be safe and nurturing for everyone involved. Our hope is that by providing people with a means to grow their own food together, they will deepen their connections to the neighborhood while increasing their own food security. When Carney looks ahead, he sees why the focused work at Triangle Park will make a difference: “The promise/hope of the community is that ‘yes’ we can make a change today for the good of tomorrow. We are not powerless, what we say and do empowers us, it does matter. What ever it is we desire from life, we must be willing to invest into life.”

We are not powerless, what we say and do empowers us, it does matter. What ever it is we desire from life, we must be willing to invest into life.

Site plan and planting schedule for the Triangle Park Community Garden

Back to The Underground News: Spring 2014

Emily Frost, Events and Garden Leader Coordinator

A true story about the organic growth of a neighborhood, a garden, and the man who helped bring them together

Kurtis Keele has poured a lot into the Lowell Street Community Garden. As garden leader for five years and neighbor to the garden for 20, he has been an integral part of the many changes that took place in this space, and the garden in turn has become a meaningful part of Kurtis’s life. When he was considering a new vehicle, he purchased a truck- it would be useful for the garden. He regularly buys tools to distribute to gardeners. He recently invested in a rototiller, which he claims is for himself, but we both know it will spend its lifetime in the garden.

But Kurtis’ relationship with Lowell Street Community Garden extends far beyond his generous contributions of garden amenities. I recently sat down with Kurtis, over some authentic Latin cuisine at my favorite hole-in-the-wall spot on Federal Boulevard. Over guac and mole, I explored the man, the myth, and the garden. Here is what I learned.

Though Lowell Street Community Garden is one of seven gardens across the DUG network located on Denver Parks and Recreation land, from the curb it looks less like a park and more like just another yard on the street in this predominantly Spanish-speaking neighborhood. In fact, many neighbors believed for a time that it was Kurtis’ yard, since he was consistently working in the garden every time someone passed by. They asked when he was going to build a house! And then Kurtis would invite them in to take a plot. The vast majority of the plots have always been and still are utilized by people whom live in the neighborhood, if not on that very street, as he does. His community outreach consisted primarily of the tried and true method of “showing up.” Kurtis was nearly always in the garden, and nearly every current gardener came to the garden by way of walking by and asking Kurtis about it. Another way that families got involved was through their curious kids, who made friends with “Grandpa” as he became known.

When the garden first started, there was a vacant lot next door. Kurtis worked in the garden with his scooter nearby, which captured the interest of the many young boys in the neighborhood. With (alleged) parental permission, these young kids would come to the garden to drive Kurtis’ scooter all over the vacant lot. And, one by one, their families got to know “grandpa” as well, and took up plots at Lowell Street. The garden has become a social hub, a third space for neighbors in the evenings during the growing season. “It’s a real social thing with all the 40- to 50-year-old men. They go out there and hang out in the evening, and water, and talk, and smoke, and drink, and you know, socialize. And all the kids in the neighborhood have grown up, and now they’re having kids.” But they stay rooted here in this neighborhood, expanding to a new plot for their own young families.

Kurtis took over garden leadership some five or so years ago. At that time, “there were literally 10 plots. And most of those were one person who would have two plots. It was kind of an empty place. The lawn was a pain in the butt, because nobody watered it and I had to mow it. So, as it started to fill up, people said “I need a garden plot” and I said “OK, where do you want it?” and I rototilled up all the grass, never thinking this was actually a design! Sorry, Michael.”

So, as it started to fill up, people said “I need a garden plot” and I said “OK, where do you want it?” and I rototilled up all the grass, never thinking this was actually a design! Sorry, Michael.”

When it occurred to Kurtis that he could lose the land that he and the other gardeners had unwittingly guerilla gardened, he reached out to DUG. Fortunately, DUG was able to work with the landowners to negotiate new boundaries for Lowell Street Community Garden that encompassed an approved expansion plan. Kurtis could rest easy knowing that the additional plots were there to stay. “And that’s how I got stuck with it,” he says of his leadership position.

(Garden leaders! Considering going rogue and expanding your garden’s plots? Please, don’t! Our good relationship with landowners, and the future of community gardens, depends upon DUG and gardeners upholding our end of land use agreements. If you are interested in expanding your community garden, give us a shout. We’re happy to work with you to explore those possibilities.)

As someone who self-identifies as an introvert, the garden has played an important role in Kurtis’ social experience. “[Becoming garden leader happened] at a time when it was therapeutic for me, and it has been ever since. …I tend to isolate or be in anonymous places- like sit in a restaurant, go to a movie alone. Isolated. So it’s very good for me to be social and spend time with my neighbors. It’s really fun. And it amuses the hell out of me.”

Kurtis says that his favorite thing about gardening is “learning how to eat vegetables. Collard greens! I had heard what they are, but never seen them, never fixed them. I now eat collard greens, I eat the greens off the broccoli and the cauliflower, mustard greens- all of these greens. I grew up in a suburban low-income family and my mom’s idea of cooking was boiling hotdogs. Or she’d make a roast. I would say, “What’s for dinner?” and she’d say, “I made a roast” and I would say “Well Mom, a roast does not make a meal. What goes with it?” and she said “Two slices of bread and some butter.”

Just learning different foods is my favorite part. And getting out of the house. Getting people involved who you see walk by and look.

Does Kurtis relate to any particular vegetable more than others? I asked him what his “spirit vegetable” is. His answer reflects wisdom gleaned from years of experience cultivating community in the neighborhood: “The green bean. I love the way they grow, pole beans. You can cover up anything with pole beans! Cover the fence, cover the walkway. I plant pole beans everywhere. And I have a saying at the garden- I’m not sure where it came from originally, either the Aztecs or the Mayans- you know there were no 7-11s on the corner. So, we say the first three rows are for the travelers. You stick your hand into that fourth row, we cut your hand off- you’re stealing. But those first three rows are up for grabs. A lot of gardens have really big fences, which is really good for… something. But I tell all of my gardeners to plant along the walkways things like cherry tomatoes, beans, things that as they go by, people can grab one and eat it. Cause they’re going to anyway, so don’t give them your 300 pound pumpkin, give them your cherry tomatoes.”

To his fellow garden leaders, Kurtis offers these words on balance: “You’ve got to be able to do both. Let it go, and spend 80 hours a week there.”

Knowing that this was his advice, it was no surprise to me how our time together ended. As the meal was wrapping up, Kurtis took a moment to answer an incoming phone call. His response to the caller is what I now understand to be commonplace for him:

“If I’m not at the house, I’ll be at the garden. Give me a call and I’ll meet you.”

Kurtis Keele lives half a block from the Lowell Street Community Garden. He has participated in both the Master Community Gardener and Master Composter Training Programs. Kurtis shakes things up by taking on new hobbies every 5-10 years: once an avid skier, he forayed into 4-wheeling, and then explored scuba diving. His most recent passion: gardening, especially composting and rototilling. We are so grateful!

Back to The Underground News: Spring 2014

By Lauren Christensen, Denver Urban Gardens Volunteer and Outreach Coordinator

The beautiful Place Bridge Academy Community GardenAs the 2014 garden season comes to a close, we shine the volunteer spotlight on Jack Franssen, Master Community Gardener and garden leader at Place Bridge Academy Community Garden. In addition to taking on these roles, Jack also volunteers with our Free Seeds & Transplants program, one year famously delivering seeds to over ten distribution centers when a few other volunteers were unable to attend delivery day. His enthusiastic efforts ensured that hundreds of people received their seeds on time!

Jack began his journey with Denver Urban Gardens at the Beeler Street Community Garden, after he was encouraged to contact the garden leader there as he searched for volunteer opportunities. While gardening at Beeler, he met a gentleman wanting to start a new community garden, and, together, they worked with others in the community to start the garden that would become Place Bridge Academy Community Garden.

What Jack enjoys about being involved with Denver Urban Gardens is the idea of people learning to help themselves, as well as helping their neighbors. He loves getting to know new people and different cultures, and claims that many of the people he meets are better gardeners than he is (we doubt that, Jack!).

Jack also enjoys his Master Community Gardener presentations, saying that even though they sometimes wind up being about something different than he expected going into the presentation, he likes seeing how people respond to what he has to say, and has a water conservation presentation that he is especially proud of.

At DUG, we appreciate Jack because he is always willing to lend a helping hand and takes extra steps to make things run smoothly, such as meeting Dusty Martin, DUG’s Construction Manager, on site in the event of a water break at Place Bridge Academy Community Garden, with the area around the break already dug up, making the repair easier and faster. Jack also takes the time to attend many of our Garden Leader Round Tables to share his wealth of knowledge and experience with other garden leaders.

DUG appreciates Jack, and volunteers like him, who allow us to sustain and continue our work with the community!

Interested in learning more about volunteering with DUG? Click here!

Back to The Underground News: Fall 2013

By Shannon Spurlock, Denver Urban Gardens Community Initiatives Coordinator

This past September, Steve Schulz, a Chemistry and Environmental Science teacher at Jefferson High School in Edgewater, CO described, in his words, a momentous day during the garden’s first harvest:

For the first time in District history, our high school students have started to feed themselves. My Environmental Science students harvested about 80 pounds of vegetables and fruits from the garden that are now being served in the school lunches.

Momentous was a very fitting word to describe an event that was more than five years in the making.

Back in 2007, Schulz had reached out to Denver Urban Gardens to explore the idea of partnering with the Jeffco Public School District and Jefferson High School to host a school-based community garden. Since then, there have been several planning and design processes, as well as the very intricate process of working through the details of establishing the first community garden on school grounds in Jeffco Public Schools.

To bring the high school’s vision to fruition, a myriad of partners representing multiple sectors and organizations came together at each step along the way. With the support of Jeffco Facilities, Jefferson High School Principal Mike Little, and LiveWell Wheat Ridge, Schulz was able to move the process forward and begin to engage surrounding businesses, service providers, schools and community members in exploring the potential of a community garden in their community.

One key partner, Lumberg Elementary, was fortuitously located across the street from the Jefferson High garden site, and offered a unique opportunity for high school students to mentor younger children. Lumberg’s Parent Liaison, Angela Bennett, worked with the parent group to host on-site garden-based educational programs and engage the parents in growing their own food. Edlyn Rodriguez, Jefferson’s Parent Liaison, also reached out to parents and helped get the word out about the community garden and its role in bridging the school community with the surrounding neighborhood.

With so much outreach and active community engagement, it was important to remain focused on the direct benefits of having a community garden on school grounds. From the very beginning, Schulz emphasized the importance of student involvement and integrating the garden into their daily lives. He sought to use the produce the students grew and infuse it into the cafeteria. Through hard work and ongoing dedication, he worked with Jeffco Public Schools to have Jefferson High School be one of four district schools to implement a program known as garden to cafeteria, whereby the produce grown by the students is used in school meals.

What took more than five years to put in place now has the opportunity to create lasting change at the school and neighborhood level. The hard work put in by Schulz, his students and both schools, along with the participating residents and community partners will encourage this community’s youth to become their own change makers and help create a healthier, more connected community for Jefferson High School and the City of Edgewater.

Back to The Underground News: Fall 2013

By Emily Frost, Events and Garden Leader Coordinator

How do you heal a community devastated by violence? If you are Ana and James Chavez, you do it by reclaiming wasted land, connecting searching youth with a past to be proud of, and getting your hands dirty. This is a redemption story.  

Ana and James lost their teenage son Troy to gang violence. Troy Chavez was one of 108 children in Denver and the surrounding areas who was a victim of violence between 1992 and 1994- the summer of 1993 is actually known locally as the “Summer of Violence.” Ana and James wanted to change the trajectory of hopelessness that they saw in the youth in their neighborhood, to provide them with a different path, as their son Troy had tried to do himself. They started with peace marches in the community, calling for an end to the violence as they carried crosses bearing the names of the 108 children who were victims of violence on their backs throughout the neighborhood. This gained widespread community attention, and neighbors and fellow families of survivors and victims alike soon drew together to create something more permanent. Ultimately, the community decided to construct a memorial, and in so doing create lasting means of engaging community, honoring the memories of the young victims, and providing children an opportunity to choose a different path. A community garden concept was born.

Leprino Foods offered the space on the corner of 38th and Shoshone. They used to have a greenhouse on site, but a fire had ravaged the building and left an unsightly vacant lot that became a popular drug haven. Ana and the community were feeling overwhelmed by the amount of space. It was about that time that Michael and David (then Co-Executive Directors) of Denver Urban Gardens got involved. They had heard about the good community organizing Ana was doing and offered to help. At first, the community members were uncertain about bringing in outsiders to help accomplish their goals, but when DUG made it clear they were committed to helping and supporting the community vision and had no desire to run the project or tell folks how to do it, the project moved forward.

Ana says that community members were very interested and engaged in the project because this community, largely of Mexican ancestry, were people who came from a farm working background, and who have always been connected with the earth. There was a shared belief in the importance of connection to the earth, as well as a growing desire to reconnect children with the earth and with their history. The community decided to call the garden “The Troy Chavez Memorial Peace Garden,” but the garden itself is dedicated to all children who are victims of violence. Ana notes poignantly that “Somehow, if you don’t have a past, all you have is a future, and it makes it a difficult journey. So we decided to go back to the past to reconnect our people to the earth and what is important.”

“When I say ‘our people’ and ‘our ancestors’, I mean the Aztecs, Mayans, and Toltecs. We started teaching that we are not foreigners to this land. We are not immigrants to this country. We are indigenous people. And teaching this sparked a pride in the community, because we’re always told we’re not from here, but we are. So when we started telling people about the garden and the vision of the garden, the youth themselves decided they wanted to build a miniature Aztec ball court.  It’s the first thing that you see when you walk into the garden.” It is a testament to the ownership these young people have taken over the garden, as are the tiles that the youth drew of their hopes for their future.

“All these kids, they only see their own city block. They don’t think of growing or becoming a bigger person, because they think it’s all they have, this is all that there is for them.” So Ana takes kids on perspective-expanding, out-of-city adventures. The youth work towards these different trips by volunteering. For example, after volunteering to plant trees to restore vulnerable forest areas, Ana and James took the youth to Rocky Mountain National Park on a camping trip. They go skiing, river rafting, horseback riding, and do a variety of different activities with the kids to introduce them to a broader life than the one that they presently have. They are working toward changing the mindset of these youth, which often doesn’t extend beyond what life might look like if they make it to 21 years of age. Ana shared that one hard reality to swallow came when she asked the youth to design memorial tiles to decorate the garden, to draw what they wanted to be when they grew up. None of the tiles extended past young twenties–a snapshot into the mentality of these youth who expect to die young. But Ana, and the garden, are changing that.

“The garden is really important because it touches so many people. We get kids from La Escuela Tlatelolco, Denver Kids, Servicio de la Raza, local daycares, and juvenile diversion programs. We also work with an organization called Peer One, in which incarcerated men come help in the garden. People are drawn to this garden because when you walk into this space, you feel something there… this community garden is all about fighting violence with peace.”

This summer, you can support the Troy Chavez Peace Memorial Garden by partaking in the youth run markets. Keep an eye out on the DUG website for dates and times. To learn more about how you or your organization can get involved in the programs at Peace Community Garden, please contact us.

Back to The Underground News: Spring 2013