Ground Zero

In my stuffed nose, sneezing, clogged head and sore throat 2nd day of Spring in March, I found myself being introduced to the site of the future Edgewood Community Garden by Cassie, the mastermind of the operation in greening this beautiful space.  

This all started in December 2011 when Cassie forwarded an e-mail announcement sent from a George Washington list serve to all students regarding the Clinton Global Initiative University (CGI U) meeting taking place at GW from March 31st - April 1st, to a handful of friends gauging interest in submitting a Commitment to Action.  In the end, Cassie and I banded together in submitting our proposal and to our surprise, the commitment was accepted by CGI U.  In response to the energy the acceptance gave us, we went about submitting grants for additional funding, starting with DC Parks an Recreation.  

We were rejected.  Seriously?!  The reason given: "a community garden at Edgewood can’t be approved because of the lack of access to water".  Again, Seriously?!  There is a fire hydrant at the foot of the park and Cassie was fired up enough to carry buckets of water from her house, a block away, and up the hill to our garden knoll.  I would certainly be there with her, but couldn't we figure out an "easier" route to go about this?  Cassie took this opportunity to send off a flurry of e-mails to DC Council Members and the Mayor's office expressing her astonishment in this decision, especially considering that the DC government has promised the renovation of the Edgewood recreation center at Langdon Park where our garden will be built.  We thought they were unwilling to look at additional options, like hiring a contractor to install a spigot on the exterior of the Rec Center.  Ultimately, with Cassie's powers of persuasion, DCPR became amenable and supportive of our plans and approved our grant proposal a week later and supplied us with a name of a contractor to install a spigot.  Go Edgewood Community Garden!  We are on our way!

The spigot installation will cost about $700 and we have submitted another grant proposal to secure funding for this installation.  The CGI U meeting takes place at the end of the month, Spring Break starts on March 10th, it feels like Spring outside (obviously my nose is responding to it accordingly), and we're anxious and excited to get our hands dirty.  However, before that can happen, we need volunteers for our building and planting weekends to be scheduled for early and mid-April, network with local gardens centers for potential donations to our garden, submit grants, attend monthly meetings for our DCPR grant and make orders for compost, mulch, soil and determine which vegetables we want to grow.  

Stay tuned for e-mails from our Edgewood Community Garden e-mail address requesting a little bit of your time in the coming weeks!  

view from the street

Our fearless leader!

We can't wait for our raised garden beds to be built in a few weeks!

It's gonna be a BBQ summer!

this could use a make-over

grassy knoll of drugs, GOOD RIDDANCE! 

home to a future flower bed

We can't wait to share this space with you!