The Mahncke Park Neighborhood Association Board recognizes the Mahncke Park Garden Group as a group of people interested in bringing a community garden to the Mahncke Park Neighborhood in Clover Lawn Park. This group shall develop a plan whose area represents no more than 20% of the clover lawn park and deliver to the board prior to breaking
ground for review and approval.
A full statement will be issued by the board on Wednesday, February 17th.
The Mahncke Park Garden Group will hold an open meeting for input on Saturday, February 20th at 9 AM at the Clover Lawn Park.
I'm not sure where the right place to post this is but I was thinking a lot today and wanted to share. First, thank you to the garden group whose great efforts yielded the vision & grant for an amazing, life-giving, relationship-building resource in the midst of our community - a gift to all of us and future residents as well. And also to our board members and neighbors who gave their time and who care about our neighborhood!
ReplyDeleteI regret I was not free to get involved sooner, but I felt so excited when I saw how comprehensive the plans were and how much momentum was going. I had figured things were still in the discussion phase, but so much was accomplished! I sensed the deep frustration and disappointment that came with the realization that planting might not proceed in March, and our strong desire to start digging soon. Yet it also made me sad to hear at one point this morning that the vision might have been exchanged for a small grouping of veggies at Clover Lawn with little hope for anything else without struggle & animosity. Of course, growing food is awesome, and compromise is always a part of being-in-community, but my past experience of both community gardens (and school gardens, which ours is not) has led me to value them as so much more.
Have you heard of Karl Linn? He is the author of Building Commons & Community and was a landscape architect who shaped the community garden movement in the SF bay area. A synopsis of his writings on the "process" such as we discussed this morning might be especially relevant: http://www.karllinn.org/CommonsFoundations.pdf Also check out the main web site if you're interested, http://www.karllinn.org/index.html and click on Projects Wiki at the bottom of the page to see more about the many "garden commons" he helped create. Some ideas may seem like just too much to tackle, but here we are, moving forward as we can and who knows where it will lead? I am very hopeful.
Lastly, since it came up again this morning, here's the link to the City Repair site: http://cityrepair.org/ (Click on placemaking for more details)
If you are already familiar w/ this material & it's repetitive, I apologize!
Gratefully, Dana
Dana - thank you.
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