Khue Yang moved to Providence’s South Side from his native Laos about 10 years ago. While his move to the United States changed his life drastically, Yang was able to hold on to one tradition that is especially sacred in his culture: gardening.
Yang’s family tends two plots, or 288 square feet, of community gardens in land owned by the Southside Community Land Trust (SCLT) on Somerset Avenue. Like many immigrant families that use the gardens, Yang’s family sells at farmers’ markets their excess herbs and vegetables, including peppers and beans.
Brown University graduate Deborah Schimberg founded SCLT 25 years ago when patches of the South Side were abandoned. Where many people saw desolation, Schimberg and her friends saw an opportunity. When resourceful immigrants began gardening the land, Schimberg and her friends recognized a chance to learn and also to share information about the dangers of chemicals in the soil and how to grow safely. The resulting organization became SCLT (www.southsideclt.org), which now runs 10 gardens, including a 50-acre farm in Cranston.
SCLT is as much an educator as a landowner. The organization has helped 15 schools to cultivate their own gardens, and established the Broad Street Farmer’s Market, the only market in the state to accept Electronic Benefit Transfer (EBT) and food stamps. SCLT’s City Farm serves as a model of bio-intensive growing (getting the most use out of a small patch of soil).
(In related news, Urban Greens Cooperative Market will hold a community meeting and membership drive kickoff, this Saturday, November 18, at 2 PM, at the West Broadway Neighborhood Association, 1560 Westminster St, Providence. For info, contact Max at urban greens@gmail.com, call 401.222.0860, or visit www.urbangreens.com.)
About 1000 Providence school children come through City Farm annually on field trips. “We hope that children . . . learn to appreciate nature, and also to enjoy vegetables because they become a product of hard work. Hopefully, children will also learn healthy nutritional habits,” says SCLT spokesman Taylor Ellowitz.
SCLT has been a catalyst for creating positive relationships in its neighborhood. When the gardens were established, neighbors began to meet each other, and had a common goal and sense of accomplishment in the tending and harvesting of the gardens. People in the community “gained a sense of pride in their work and collaboration, and that has carried over into the general upkeep and appearance of the neighborhood,” says Katherine Brown, SCLT’s executive director.
The popularity of the gardens, which are mainly publicized through word-of-mouth, is evident. About 30 families are currently on waiting lists for plots in the gardens.
According to Brown, SCLT does not only seek to teach people self-subsistence; it also aims to “model how to make a business.” SCLT uses small, inexpensive lots, and produces a high crop yield. SCLT then helps to create a customer base at local farmers’ markets, and offers classes on pickling and preserving leftover crops to use or sell in the off-season.
The small staff works out of an unmarked house-converted-office next to the Somerset Gardens. Yet despite the informal approach, SCLT has clearly made a mark, as evidenced by the release of a report this week on efforts to promote urban agriculture in Providence.
