How Community Gardens Are an Artifact of the Past and a Tool for the Future
To advocate for the environment is to advocate for racial justice. Just ask Mella LaFrance, a 21-year-old aspiring filmmaker who spends their time as a volunteer at the Museum of Reclaimed Urban Space — located in Manhattan — curating film festivals centered on environmentalism and learning about the intersection between urban activism and social justice.
In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic and resurgence of the Black Lives Matter movement, this past year in particular has reignited calls for intersectional activism, especially when discussing food justice. At the center of these conversations lie the value of community gardens — the ways, advocates say, they provide nutritional resources to community fridges and food pantries across the country that are feeding thousands of food-insecure Americans right now.
This past fall, LaFrance began volunteering at greenups to preserve the history and appeal of community gardens in the Lower East Side at a time of immense need. Though the winter season has temporarily paused events, LaFrance is eager to get back to planting in community gardens once the spring rolls around.
In this Q&A, LaFrance discusses the meaning of urban activism during a time of crisis, and how they got involved in caring for community gardens, which, LaFrance argues, serve an increasingly integral role, especially among college students.
MoRUS engages in a range of urban activism, from supporting squatters rights to protecting community gardens. What does urban activism mean to you? And how do you incorporate this into your own activism?
Urban activism is the grassroots organizing that is the [foundation] to building a better future. The people who need mutual aid and need aid most are the ones who are going to take radical action to make change. That to me is the foreground and starting point where change is to be made. MoRUS has helped me understand where I am physically, how I interact with the space around me and how I can make that interaction more genuine and more nutritious for myself and for the people around me.
The history of community gardens dates back to the 1890s, when movements for providing places for people to garden began in both New York City and Detroit, according to MoRUS. On their website, MoRUS writes that part of their work centers on tending to community gardens in the East Village. What are some things you do as a volunteer that contributes to the preservation and growth of community gardens?
I try to do my part by gathering friends to come with me when there’s a garden ‘greenup.’ Greenups are held on the weekends — usually on Saturdays in the morning — and all you do is just plant flowers, pick out weeds or build greenhouses. I’ve actually learned how to plant from these events. I’m not a gardener but I did lead a greenup once at Carmen’s Garden on Avenue C between 7th and 8th street which was one of the scariest moments in my life. I had so much anxiety [leading it] but to me it’s all part of making these gardens more beautiful.
What does a typical greenup look like?
Basically, you’re just kind of thrown into gardening, which is how I learned how to do this. There are always leaders from the garden that are training people and guiding you so you don’t mess up. Usually, you’ll be separated into groups for gardening or building. I don’t really like building things so I garden most times. I typically plant between 20 to 30 bulbs of flowers when I volunteer at greenups.
The rise of Black Lives Matter protests last year put a spotlight on addressing systemic and racial oppression Black people experience in the US. The intersection between environmental and racial justice is incredibly visible when discussing low food access. How is tending to community gardens both an environmental and racial justice issue?
I definitely think the idea of collectivism comes from Indigenous communities. The idea of communities using earth’s natural resources without totally demolishing nature in the process is fully an Indigenous idea. I’m drawn to the slogan “We protect us” that came up during the Black Lives Matter protests this past summer. I think gardens are all about community care and establishing mutual aid and love for the land we’re in. It is inherently decolonizing the land where you take resources and give them back. I’m continually drawn to this idea of collectivism where you symbolically hold hands with people around you and share space with one another. To me, that is activism in itself.
How else do you advocate for community gardens and mutual aid organizing in your community?
I mainly advocate through MoRUS and the things I create. Volunteering my time, donating money I have to mutual aid organizations when I have it, and making films or writing poetry about how we can all do better. Like, “this love I have for the place I exist in.”
A survey report last year found that since the beginning of the pandemic, nearly one-third of students surveyed have experienced food insecurity. Low food access has been a widespread issue on college campuses for a while now, but the pandemic has exacerbated this problem. How could community gardens help address low food access among low-income and marginalized students on university campuses?
I honestly wish there were more community gardens located around NYU’s campus. I think that community gardens’ existence and the nutrition they hold definitely does a lot for people that occupy those gardens. When it comes to college students, I think that the only way for them to access food is if there is a hand reaching out to them to provide them that food, which is why the gardens would be the foundation of it all. It has to begin with access to these gardens so that people can provide students with the nutrition that they need.
In what ways can the history of community gardens impact the future of their existence?
These gardens themselves are monuments to the struggle that they faced. The more people that exist in these spaces and learn its history, the more people will want to preserve it and tell that history to the next person that may stumble into a garden or volunteer at a greenup.
Based on our conversation, it appears that MoRUS has had a tremendous impact on you and the politics you engage in. What have you learned most while being a volunteer at MoRUS?
I think just understanding the importance of grassroots activism and knowing that the world didn’t start when you entered it and the world won’t stop when you leave it. There are people that existed in this space before me and there will be people that will exist in this space after me.
