11-2SG Grand Aspirations - Summer of Solutions Hartford
Grant Round:
2011 September
Grant Program:
Small Grants
Grant Type:
Other Grants
Grant amount requested:
2,500.00
Grant amount awarded:
$1,250.00
Attachments
Please provide a brief description of the project for which you seek funding.
Grand Aspirations empowers, connects, and supports youth leaders as they create innovative and self-sustaining initiatives that systemically integrate climate and energy solutions, economic security, and social justice. Through the Summer of Solutions, Grand Aspirations trains young people in the leadership skills they need to create a just, thriving, and sustainable world. The summer of 2011 marked the beginning of Summer of Solutions Hartford. Many in Hartford suffer from inequalities in food access, so we chose to focus our work on food justice. Hartford has a vibrant food justice community composed of citywide organizations, neighborhood associations, and many urban gardens. We partnered with many organizations, including; the Southside Institutions Neighborhood Alliance (SINA), which leased the land; Hartford Areas Rally Together, a community organizing group; and the Somali-Bantu Community Development Center, a neighborhood coalition of the Somali-Bantu refugee community. We worked with HART and the Somali-Bantu CDC to support their vision for sustaining themselves through farming, and partnered with them to begin the garden. Through our relationship with SINA, we accessed two abandoned lots on Zion St. As we worked, we befriended more residents of Zion St. With all of their help, we constructed and planted over 60 raised beds for individuals or families from the community. We fostered a sense of community belonging and ownership by holding a series of potlucks, an Art Week, and Kids’ Week, each of which is described in more detail in the attached Story of Summer of Solutions Hartford 2011. The next step for SoS Hartford is to expand this model to additional sites. Because this year was so successful, SINA is lending us more land to start another garden. Community outreach efforts begin in the spring followed by Training Week in June. After constructing and planting the garden, we will devote our time to food, environmental, and social justice programming for the neighborhood. SoS is volunteer-based. Our three program leaders work year-round and in June will be joined for the summer by 10-20 program participants. To unleash this human potential and equalize access to the experience, we pay need-based stipends to both program leaders and participants. We would use this grant to provide two stipends (of $1,250 each) to two program leaders. This would cover rent and food costs for the summer and allow us to focus on our work as "solutionaries."
Project Summary
Summer of Solutions - Hartford received a grant in 2011 to cover a program leader stipend as the program is expanding to additional sites.
Primary Issue Area:
Food
Please break-down/categorize the program expenses:
| Proposed Item | Estimated $ Amount | Would grant funds be used for this item? | Type Of Expense |
|---|---|---|---|
| Program Leader stipend | $1,250.00 | Yes | Materials |
| Program Leader stipend | $1,250.00 | Yes | Materials |
| Program Leader stipend | $1,250.00 | Materials | |
| Soil and Delivery | $2,000.00 | Materials | |
| Gardening tools (wheelbarrows, shovels, etc) | $300.00 | Materials | |
| Wood, bed liner, glue, and nails to build raised beds | $2,000.00 | Materials | |
| Need-based participant stipends | $4,000.00 | Materials | |
| Events costs (food, supplies, copies for advertising) | $300.00 | Materials | |
| Housing for non-local participants | $1,000.00 | Materials |
Whom does your group need to make this project happen?
Please explain how your group will engage members from your community in this project.
We’ve found enormous value in individual friendships with neighbors and official partnerships with local organizations. We are continuously fostering both at all levels of our work and planning. Our first step this spring will be to contact all previous members of the el Jardín de Zion St to make raised beds available to them for a second year, so that that community can continue to strengthen. Next, we will reach out to residents around new garden sites. We will actively seek to meet all of our neighbors and to make plots available to them. We will post information in the gardens so that passers-by and neighbors know how to get involved, and we will be present to answer questions and provide more information. Finally, we will use flyers, posters, door-to-door outreach, and signs to make our community meals, arts, music and kids programming available to the wider neighborhood. All written materials will be available in English and Spanish, to reach the large Puerto-Rican community of Zion St. We will incorporate into our programming opportunities for the community to get involved outside of the garden. These include constructing planters in which to grow food in their front yards, advertising for free programs in energy savings, and linking members to HART’s Zion Street Project. We are building new partnerships with other organizations in Frog Hollow, including Mi Casa and Our Piece of the Pie, because we’ve found that with new relationships come more exciting opportunities for collaboration. Our existing partners all have extensive networks involved in food education programming, gardening and agriculture, and community organizing. Their administrations and memberships will be great resources, which we will utilize to recruit local young people as program participants. To make the summer experience accessible to people of all income levels, we will provide need-based stipends to participants, with preference given to youth from Hartford.
If your group receives a NEGEF Grow grant, how do you plan to pay for remaining expenses?
| $ Amount | Source |
|---|---|
| $2,000.00 | Hampshire Foundation Grant |
| $5,000.00 | Indie Go-go campaign Oct 31 2011-Jan 15 2012 |
| $2,000.00 | Connecticut Bank and Trust Grant |
| $2,500.00 | NEGEF Grant |
Please list these materials or services
| $ Amount | Item |
|---|---|
| $1,500.00 | Soil |
| $1,000.00 | Wood |
Please describe what changes will occur in your community and its environment when your group's project is successful.
Urban gardening turns existing resources (empty lots, farming knowledge, time, and compost) into community assets. The gardens in Frog Hollow, Hartford will be beautiful demonstrations of community food production and will incorporate art, information, plants and people into public space. In 2012 we will add 15 beds to el Jardín de Zion Street and at least 50 plots at the new garden. The yield on Zion St will be much greater next summer because we will be able to plant earlier and have a great diversity of plants available. The food grown will feed families in the neighborhood- the definition of a local green economy. The gardens will be open to members throughout the day and to children as a place to learn and play. We will host free community potlucks, arts, educational and recreational programming on site. Many members have a wealth of farming experience. People will meet, talk and share this wisdom amongst themselves and with the younger generation. These casual conversations and more structured lessons will provide neighbors with the materials, know-how, and inspiration they need to garden in their own backyard. Through these initiatives, we will engage over 200 residents in food justice. This summer we learned the value of the garden as a safe space. We received feedback form our neighbors that they felt safe at events held in the garden at night, or that they were comfortable letting their kids play there. They told us that tensions over drug territory and the resulting violence had calmed noticeably since we began construction. That is what makes urban gardens such powerful tools for change. SoS Hartford will empower local youth to be active leaders and visionaries in their communities. As participants they will gain valuable knowledge of food production, community organizing, leadership, the green economy, and this beautiful global movement of change-makers. We expect them to continue work in their communities long after their summer with SoS Hartford.
Please list how many people in your community your group expects to actively engage in this project.
200
What relevant skills does the group need (but does not currently have access to) to help move the initiative forward?
No one on our team has sufficient experience with web design. We would love to tap into NEGEF's leadership development initiatives to expand our own experience and build our program's repertoire. To improve our Kids' Week activities it would be helpful to work with someone who has more experience educating children or structuring curriculum. We could add additional programming around cooking if we had access to someone with real cooking talent, especially working with CT local foods or vegetarian/vegan food.
What relevant skills do current members of the group have to help move the initiative forward?
As a team we have experience in fundraising, social media, gardening, farming, cooking, basic carpentry, digital and film photography, video production and editing, audi-visual technology experience, outreach, event planning, resource generation, computer mapping, graphic design, and organizing. We have been trained in leadership development, mediation, and facilitation. We are proficient in Spanish, Portuguese, and MaayMaay. We have held leadership positions ranging from organizing rallies to heading environmental clubs, to working for Public Allies.