At least 100 supporters of Grow Dat Youth Farm showed up at a public meeting on City Park’s redevelopment plan on Thursday (March 21) to express outrage over the park’s proposal to potentially relocate the farm to construct a recent road.
City Park Conservancy, the nonprofit organization that manages the day-to-day operations of the park, held a meeting at Dillard University to debate water management in the park. It was one in every of a series of meetings aimed at obtaining community opinion on the operation of the park master planwhich remains to be in development.
However, the discussion was dominated by Grow Dat supporters, who spoke out against the conservation proposal to construct a promenade through the middle of the park, which might cross the area where Grow Dat currently stands. Most of the activities centered around a large map that showed the conservationist’s plans to redevelop the park.
Members of the crowd asked reservation management staff questions on the proposed road, suggested other areas where a road could possibly be built, and chanted for reservation CEO and president Cara Lambright to refer to meeting attendees, which she eventually did.
“I don’t want this part to change,” said Kristen Shelby, a graduate of Grow Dat’s youth leadership program, pointing to the land where Grow Dat is positioned. She then pointed to a section of the map showing that the proposed road would depart the Bayou Oaks At City Park Golf Course much larger than the farm. “There is a lot of golf and some Grow Dat.”
After hearing from a group of Grow Dat supporters, Randy Odinet, vp and director of planning for the preserve, responded to the group.
“I understand why you do not need to [the road],” he said.
However, supporters of the farm – including youth leadership program participants, employees and other members of the farm’s wider community – said they imagine the conservation organization doesn’t understand why they need the farm to stay where it’s.
They said they fear that if conservationists force Grow Dat to maneuver, it will be a major blow to the farm, which since its founding in 2012 has produced about 450,000 kilos of food on the market and donation in the New Orleans metropolitan area. at the meeting, they said relocating the farm would cut back access to food in the city and impact the organization’s ability to run an academic program that teaches teenagers agricultural, vocational and interpersonal skills.
“It makes me really sad that people want to cut off that accessibility for people who maybe can’t get to the park,” said Joyce Ejiaga, a 17-year-old who’s in her second yr of working at Grow Dat. – And that is a large and vital farm. This is de facto vital for young people. “It creates a lot of job opportunities for people who are not white.”
Really difficult decisions
Later in the meeting, Lambright, president and CEO of City Park Conservancy, got here out to handle the audience. She told Verite News that the conservancy cares about Grow Dat’s mission, however it’s likely they intend to maneuver the group in favor of a recent road.
“It’s a 1,300-acre park that any nonprofit would love to have a piece of,” Lambright said. “These are really difficult decisions for a park operator, but we love urban agriculture and their mission.”
But she said conservationists are prioritizing the road connecting the north and south sides of the park and have not found a good alternative location for it.
However, there have been many suggestions from individuals who attended the meeting on increase access to and connectivity around the park, including creating more bicycle and walking paths, running a boardwalk through the golf course and constructing more paths from existing roads – Marconi Drive and Wisner Boulevard – which form the eastern and western borders of the park.
“We’re at the master planning level and we’re defining what we think things should look like,” Odinet told the audience at the starting of the meeting, suggesting that the park’s plans could change.
Still, even the possibility of Grow Da being moved was depressing for lots of the individuals who got here to the meeting. Some have expressed concern that the reserve is making decisions that can negatively impact low-income and black youth in favor of constructing the park more tourism-friendly.
“You could show young Black people learning to provide their own food without having to rely on rich people, instead of making these changes to benefit tourists,” said Alaina Carter, an assistant principal at New Harmony High School, presenting her case to Odinet.
She was one in every of several local teachers at the meeting who were concerned about the lack of community resources for his or her students. Several New Harmony students have participated in the Grow Dat youth leadership program, and classes from the school, which is positioned on Esplanade Avenue just outside City Park, often participate in field trips to the farm.
Several supporters said at the meeting that even when the farm were offered another location inside the park, the relocation could have an hostile impact on the organization. They would need to plan the move and eventually farm the recent land, which takes several years. All this is able to deprive the organization of the ability to run youth programs.
There are also elements of Grow Dat’s relationship with the land during which they’re positioned which are harder to duplicate in a recent location. Several participants expressed concerns about what would occur to the memorial garden built for youth leadership program participant Belle Adelman-Cannon who died after being hit by a bus when leaving the farm last June if the farm needed to maneuver.
“You’re going to kill my baby again,” said Laura Adelman-Cannon, Belle’s mother. “There is no reason why there should be a road through the area where my deceased child’s memorial garden is located.”
When Verite News asked Lambright at the end of the meeting to answer attendees’ concerns about the memorial garden, she said the accident had destroyed the preserve, but she didn’t know what would occur to the garden. “My ears are full of information right now,” she said.
Stay engaged
Last week, on the eve of Thursday’s public meeting, opponents of the road announced they’d formed a corporation to support the farm called Friends of Grow Dat. The group desires to advocate for the preservation of the farm and its programming in order that Grow Dat leaders and young participants can spend time running the organization.
“Staff, youth [and] on the Grow Dat board are focused on the good work of feeding our city, providing amazing opportunities for our youth… and storing carbon in the soil,” said Marguerite Green, a member of Friends of Grow Dat. “They have their hands full… so we wanted to take some of the burden off of them and show up for them the same way they show up for us.”
Members of the recent group showed as much as the meeting in large numbers wearing Friends of Grow Dat T-shirts and were amongst those that pressed City Park management for answers. At the end of the meeting, Lambright agreed to carry a public meeting solely focused on ways to guard the farm, which was met with applause and cheers. The date and time of this meeting haven’t been set.
Thursday’s meeting was the third of six meetings the conservancy has scheduled to debate the development plan. The next meeting is scheduled for May.
Callie Rubbins-Breen, co-executive director of Grow Dat, said it was amazing to see so many supporters at the meeting, and he or she hopes people stay engaged. She said Grow Dat wants to fulfill with Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates, Inc., the New York landscape architecture firm that developed the master plan, and Lambright to debate how the farm can remain in its current location long run .
“Grow Dat is working to engage our young people in this process and we will continue to do so,” she wrote in an email to Verite on Friday. “[City Park] will host youth focus groups at various schools and youth groups across the city. We will, and hope, encourage young people in our programs to interact on this process [City Park] reaches out especially to young individuals with Grow Dat.”
