It's All About Sharing Experience, Knowledge, Love, and Making Friends

Carl Awsumb was so excited on that Saturday in July, when more children showed up than ever before.  With fifteen to twenty children and few adults it was almost too much of a good thing.  They picked one hundred pints of blackberries – the most ever – and sold them at a local Farmers’ Market with the help of Grow Memphis. 

Cleaning and sorting the tomatoes, beans and okra for the cartons.

One might think it is the profit share of up to five dollars an hour that keeps the children from the local Binghampton neighborhood coming back to McMerton Gardens early every Saturday morning.   But it is so much more.  You can see it in the faces of the children and the volunteers hoeing, weeding and harvesting the beautiful fruits and vegetables.  There is a pride in the product, an enthusiasm in the friendships, and an energy for being and working together.

When Carl began this work in 2007  he only knew that he had been so blessed in his own life that he wanted to share that privilege.  His vision has drawn volunteers from the surrounding area – wealthy and poor, young and not-so-young, from disparate neighborhoods and cultures.  He strongly feels that if he can invite people together that are normally on “different sides of the equation” that perspectives will change.  It has proven true.  Friendships have formed around the tasks and the time together. 

Billy Vaughan is one of the adult volunteers that help to cultivate the six garden plots scattered around the twenty block neighborhood.  Billy often testifies to the joy each child brings to the Gardens, and it is evident as he picks up a handful of tools and walks alongside a little girl the few blocks to the next garden.  She chats away about how she has started school this week and can’t wait to go back on Monday.

Vaughan and some of the children.

Indeed, McMerton Gardens is a vibrant Community of Shalom with all kinds of seeds being planted and harvested.

- Kristi Estes-

If you have questions, comments or a story to share, please contact Kristi@ctcmidsouth.org.

Gardening tools in place of firearms?

Community gardens could be social and economic game changers

About six years ago, Carl Awsumb read a front-page article in a Memphis newspaper about the amount of violent crime in the city and how it seems that practically everybody was buying a firearm and learning how to use it.

“I was so horrified by that,” he recalls.

That article was the necessary catalyst prompting Carl to nurture the growth of new found neighborliness through work on a community garden.

He was nearing retirement and eager to use his time to support the city he loves.  The garden, which was started as a raised bed in the parking lot of The Commons in Binghampton, seemed like a logical place to combat the negative perceptions and realities people seem all too eager to highlight in the city.

“Sometimes people are worried about what they’re going to do in retirement and I realize I had the easiest transition of anybody I knew,” Carl says, and he began to recruit others like him to help.

Today, a core of about 10 people contribute to the work and Carl sees people from all backgrounds that live in the neighborhood connecting with each other over the primal experience of growing food together, and realizing some modest economic benefits.

The group soon understood that to have the greatest impact they would need to engage young people and offer modest financial incentives.  Two years ago they began paying small amounts during harvest time — a dollar a pint for Cherry tomatoes, for example, that the children would then see sold at market for $3.

“Then we could start the whole dialogue about what you do with the other $2, for next Saturday, next season, next year,” Carl says.

In months when there is no harvest, there is a heap of work to do and a flat rate of $5 per hour is paid to people helping prepare for the next season.

“It gives us a chance to talk to them about the meaning of work and what they’re going to do with that $5,” Carl says.

Everyone understands that funds are limited and the money will not last, yet if they want to reap the benefits of next harvest, they can decide to continue working after the funds dry up.

It has not been easy to bring everyone together, he admits. Mistrust still exists between different groups of people in parts of the city, yet progress is being made as the initiative continues to expand.

The more Carl learns, the more he says he believes that urban agriculture could be an answer to many of the problems facing cities today, both economically and socially.

- Kristian Partington -

If you have questions, comments or a story to share, please contact kristian@axiomnews.ca.

Powerful conversations for Memphis’ Carl Awsumb

"I’m excited by what’s going on in this city"

One of the first questions posed to the gathering of 300 community members in Memphis on Nov. 14 urged attendees to consider the gifts they have to offer of themselves, and that introspective concept sits in Carl Awsumb’s mind as he looks back at what inspired him most during the event.

“I thought that was a very, very powerful way to bring you to the present moment,” Carl says.

“I’m as guilty as a lot of people are of thinking in terms of what I’ve done to help me define myself, and I think this conference helped me realize that there were lots of strings attached to that.”

A week later, he attended a meeting hosted by Latino Memphis, and though he knew nobody in the room he found he was able to instantly connect with people by using the same question of gifts to begin conversations.

Carl, a retired architect, spearheaded the creation of a community garden network in Binghampton, and through this work he has become entwined with community development and the Center for Transforming Communities (CTC).

Carl Awsumb (left) at Farmers Market

The CTC organized the Nov. 14 event and invited guests from across the Memphis area to hear from three community development thought leaders, and learn from each other.

People “maybe overlook the main gifts that they’ve got,” Carl says, but those gifts took center stage and the energy he felt, especially from within the young people in the room, was exciting.

“The thing that really knocked me off my comfort seat was the number of teenagers who were able to stand up and articulate so clearly,” he says.

“It was amazing to listen to these young people.”

It can be easy for people to become isolated, Carl adds, and the meeting was “the best forum that I can think of to allow people to really interact across age and ethnicity and income.”

It was a pleasant new conversation, far outside the traditional views of conventional Memphis media and the many citizens there who are all too eager to highlight the city’s shortcomings.

The crossroads the city is at today, and has been at for some time, is the choice of a new dialogue of possibility.

I left that conference thinking, ‘You know, I don’t have the financial support, but I’ve got the emotional support of all these people,” he says. “We came together and there was a collective force there that gave me the strength to carry on.

“I’m excited by what’s going on in this city.”

- Kristian Partington -

If you have questions, comments or a story to share, please contact kristian@axiomnews.ca.
Photo courtesy of www.focuseforthegood.org

‘Our diversity is a gift,’ says Rev. Billy Vaughan

Collaborative spirit spills into streets of Binghampton

The collaborative spirit among partners at The Commons on Merton is a wonderful thing to be a part of, says Rev. Billy Vaughan, but what really excites him is when he sees that spirit spill out onto the streets connecting all sorts of people and families in the diverse neighborhood.

“There’s a spiritual thing that takes place in the neighborhood because of what’s going on in the building,” Billy says. “You’d be amazed if you’re in the neighborhood for a few days, some of the ripple effects you see.

“The ‘us and them’ stuff begins breaking down, not only within The Commons, but within the larger neighborhood. You see so many different types of people in and out of there, out in the parking lot, interacting in the streets; it just has really a spiritual effect on the neighbourhood.

“It says our diversity is a gift. It’s not something where we need to be suspicious of each other; it’s a real gift of grace.”

A fall Saturday in McMerton Gardens

This is how a true community is built, he says, pointing to the first of a series of community gardens that have sprung up in the neighborhood as an example of what this new collaborative spirit looks like in tangible terms.

The garden was originally in the parking lot of The Commons overlooking a duplex building across the street and a vacant lot that was never very well-kept.

The people organizing that modest little garden called the duplex’s owner and offered to care for his property in exchange for use of the space to plant a garden for all to use.

“The owner shrugged and said, ‘Oh, what the hell, go ahead and do it,’ ” Billy recalls.

“Now there is this wonderful community garden there and it draws some of the kids from the refugee program, some of the African-American kids from the neighborhood and volunteers from Rhodes College and the University of Memphis’ graduate program in nutrition.”

The interaction among this group is a beautiful thing to witness, he says. 

They’re sharing chores and vegetables, stories and experience, and whether or not they know it they’re sharing space in the transition to a new economy of hope, built upon the gifts of all community members.

By Kristian Partington, Axiom News
Photos courtesy of Focus for The Good

Sowing the Seeds of Community

Bonds are formed in a community garden

Part way through an interview discussing his experience with urban renewal and community building, Christian Man, puts the journalist on hold.

During a learning unit on Fall production.

“I’ve just got to deliver these groceries,” he says, and in the muffled distance he can be heard discussing the upcoming harvest feast with a fellow named Walter, who must be part of the Green Leaf Learning Farm’s community garden project.
 
Walter is on the hook for some sweet-potato pie, it seems, and in both of their voices rings the sound of enthusiasm.

The harvest feast is shaping up to be a pretty good time where the community can come together and honor each other’s hard work and the relationships that have been sown in the neighborhood’s garden.
 
Christian is very much looking forward to it.
 
As an eager student, Christian has been working with Rev. Marlon Foster and Knowledge Quest, which has operated the learning farm project since 2010. Through this work, he is connected to Communities of Shalom and the Center for Transforming Communities.
 
His undergraduate studies focused on community economic development, but his real learning has come through the friendships he’s forged through his work in south Memphis.

Times are tough for people in the neighborhood where Christian walks, but in them he sees resilience and a capacity through togetherness that speaks loudly of possibilities and community transformation.
 
He’s come alongside these new friends as he tills earth, breaks bread, and learns what it means to come together for a common purpose.
 
The co-operative spirit grows in the garden alongside fresh vegetables, and though purse strings are tight for many people, among their neighbors they find an abundance of generosity and connectivity.
 
“There’s a history of this; I’m involved in the most recent chapter but in no way is this my thing,” Christian says.
 
“It’s our thing.”
 
The garden has become a gathering point for people to share their stories, he says.
 
“It's a physical space that helps generate reflection about what’s actually going on and then what that activity reminds us of, historically, and that bonds us in some way.”

On Oct. 20 about 75 people will come together to share a meal and the bounty of the relationships they’ve built, and Christian is thankful to be a part of it.

Visit Facebook for more information about the party.

By Kristian Partington, Axiom News
Photo courtesy of Focusforthegood.org