Steps for Gardens in Danger

Reposted with permission from 596 Acres

By John from Electric Ladybug Garden (Harlem) in collaboration with 596 Acres

 

STEPS FOR GARDENS IN DANGER
1. Don't panic! Many people just like you have saved their gardens. You and your garden members have a lot of work to do if you are going to save it.

2. Keep yourselves informed. Develop a plan of action, divide up the work with other members of your garden, and get it done. Additionally, you should support other gardens and have them support you! Two groups that have great information arewww.nyccgc.org and www.596acres.org. They can't do your work for you, but they are advocating for us as a group, and they often have the best information. Have folks from your garden attend the meetings that they hold.

3. Reach out to GreenThumb director Nancy Kohn (nancy.kohn@parks.nyc.gov) to share all the awesome things that have and will continue to happened in your garden. Metrics about how much food your garden has grown, how much waste diverted by composting, etc. are great!

4. Go to the community board as soon as possible. Check here to find where yours is:http://www.nyc.gov/html/cau/html/cb/cb.shtml. Don't be shy. Call them up and find out how you can get on the agenda to speak at a meeting. Since you are on HPD property, you might want to attend the Housing and Land Use committee meetings. A lot of boards also have general meetings with announcement periods for the public at the end, so you can just show up and wait to speak. Getting support from your Community Board helps persuade your other elected officials to have some basis for supporting your garden. Your board will likely ask for a signatures of supporters from the district, so you can get started on that while you’re contacting the board, or let the board know that you are in the process of collecting signatures (as we did). If your board isn’t supportive of your efforts, don’t worry: community boards are advisory and while they are awesome to have on your side, it’s the support of neighbors and actions of your elected officials that can really make a difference.

5. Show proof of support: There are a number of ways, of course. You can do all of them or just some of them. If you don't have the computer skills, then find someone in your group who does, or, just focus on the old-fashion way of paper signatures and phone calls. Again, just focus on what you CAN do and do it - don't worry if you can't build a website. Remember: You need to show the world how important this garden is to the community!
Get signatures on a paper form. Real signatures are powerful! We made a form that anyone can download. Each page should say what the signature supports. We also stood outside the subway stop near our garden and got people to sign. (Remember to always make copies of your signature forms to give to elected officials and keep the originals!) Here is ours: http://www.electricladybuggarden.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/SAVE-THE-GARDEN-Petition-version-1.pdf
Ask churches, businesses, community organization, etc. to write short but formal (with their logo if they have one!) letters of support.
Create an online petition. This easily reaches people! Here is ours:https://www.change.org/p/help-save-harlem-s-electric-ladybug-community-garden(Please have your members sign ours as well, and we will send out yours to our members!)
Create or update your website: This can be helpful. Here is ours: http://www.electricladybuggarden.org
Create or update your garden Facebook page to help get the word out. Here is ours (feel free to "LIKE" it!) https://www.facebook.com/ElectricLadybugGarden.org
Use Twitter to tweet at other gardens and your elected officials. They’ll tweet back! Here is ours: https://twitter.com/ELadybugGarden

6. Connect with your elected officials. Find out who yours are by typing in your garden address at Who Represents Me? NYC. You can collect the emails of your local politicians and have everyone you know send an email to these politicians asking them to please save your garden. Make the email personal and descriptive: Say where the garden is, the name of the garden, how the garden benefits your community, how the garden is important to you and to children, etc. You can also email HPD.

7. Have children write letters asking your City Council Member to save the garden.

8. Put your suppor package together: Paper signatures, letters from children, online petition results (Change.org allows you to download and print a summary with names of supporters). Include photos of your garden if you like, with people in it. Write a cover letter on top that describes what the package is: Information on garden including block and lot number, contents of package, etc. If you can, find someone who can run all the pages through a copier to scan them and make a PDF file, which is something you can email quickly if you need to. Make multiple copies of your signature package.

9. Return to the community board with your signature package. Try hard to get on the agenda of either an Executive Committee meeting or a General meeting, or visit another public announcement period at the end. Network and make friends at your Community Board. Tell them you need to get this package to the right people, and you would like the Community Board to vote in favor of supporting your garden.

10. Get this package out to others. Follow up with your Council Member and other elected officials, and you can also send it to HPD.

11. Make a sign for your garden gate. Let people know that the garden is threatened, and how to get in touch with you to help save it. You can also use letters and drawings from children, laminate them, and hang on gate.

The Electric Ladybug Garden is in the middle of getting our package together for our Community Board. We will be regularly attending meetings at our Community Board, as well as with www.nyccgc.org and www.596acres.org