Gardens grow vegetables, sense of community in Flint

Updated 4:00 PM July 28, 2003

Gardens grow vegetables, sense of community in Flint

By Katie Gazella

Fannie Odom of Flint shows off one of the community gardens that was planted on a vacant lot. (Photo by Todd McKinney)

Fannie Odom holds an umbrella to shield herself from the fierce sun. It is a steamy July day in Flint, and she stands at the edge of one of the community gardens she, members of her family and some neighbors maintain.

"This is the cotton. Here are the sweet potatoes. Over there we have hot peppers and the watermelons," says Odom, a member of the East Eldridge Block Club and of the Flint Urban Gardening and Land Use Corporation (FUGLUC). "This is the cabbage, and those are the collard there."

The African/American Culture Garden grows on what was once a wounded patch of land in a Flint neighborhood that most people agree has seen better days.

On this and many other vacant plots of land, residents have planted community gardens where they grow fruits and vegetables that help to supply nutritious foods to those in the neighborhood. The FUGLUC gardens have varying rules, but at many of them, anyone can pick the produce he or she needs.

Shaquarah Barnes, left, and Felicia Williams pose with freshly picked vegetables from a community garden. (Photo by Elizabeth Perry)

Providing food is only one of the important functions of the gardens, says Katherine Alaimo, assistant research scientist in the Department of Health Behavior and Health Education and associate evaluation director of the Prevention Research Center of Michigan, both in the School of Public Health.

"I think there's a deep sense of pride that people have been able to transform a physical space," says Alaimo, who is on the FUGLUC board of directors. "I think it's given some people in Flint a new sense of hope."

The gardens have led to neighbors meeting each other and, in some cases, to preventing violence and improving the reporting of crimes, she says. Residents started to watch over the children in the neighborhood and reported to their parents when the young people behaved improperly. And knowing who belonged in the neighborhood and who didn't, Alaimo says, "has empowered people to monitor crime and call the cops" when something seems amiss.

Some of the gardens have been around for many years. Alaimo got involved in 2000, and in 2001, she helped form the Storytelling Committee of FUGLUC. Their efforts led to a book, "From Seeds to Stories: The Community Garden Storytelling Project of Flint," published this year. Anyone interested in receiving a copy of the book for a suggested $15 donation can contact Alaimo at kalaimo@umich.edu.

"Through the garden stories of this book, we have discovered that community gardening is one of the most effective ways for a neighborhood to plant roots, to assume ownership of its own land, and to prepare to face the issues with which they will have to deal," says the forward of the book, written by Pete Hutchison, a member of the Storytelling Committee. He also is director of community ministry at First Presbyterian Church in Flint and former executive director of the Neighborhood Violence Prevention Collaborative.

Katherine Alaimo of the School of Public Health and others put together a book about the gardens. (Photo by Peter Smith)

"At our very first Storytelling meeting, Mr. Jesse W. Perry of East Bishop/East Flint Park Block Club community garden, stood up and said, 'In our community garden, we don't only grow vegetables, we grow values.' We have taken that quote as our flag," says the introduction to the book, written by the Storytelling Committee.

Odom agrees. She has watched her neighbors come together, including the young people who planted the youth garden across the street from the African/American Culture Garden. The activity gave the children a sense of purpose, she says.

"The kids said, 'Miss Odom, we want to start our own garden,'" Odom recalls. They worked hard to plant beans, turnips, collards, cabbages and other vegetables, she says. Along the way, some of them learned to enjoy the activities of planting and maintaining a garden almost as much as Odom herself.

"It's quiet time," she says, "late in the afternoon, just coming down here and working."

Gardens grow vegetables, sense of community in Flint

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