You might be
interested that the Governor spent time visiting and working in a Cultivating
Community garden a low income housing community garden celebrating
Martin Luther King day, in a Cultivating Community garden in a low
income housing community. Cultivating Communities a community garden
program is sponsored by a joint partnership of Friends of P-Patch (non-profit
org), Seattle Housing Authority and the City’s P-Patch Program.
The Governor is a supporter and has visited other gardens in the past.
Now getting him to use community gardens as a metaphor is another
challenge
Ray
Schutte
"The truth of the matter is that the
flower has cleverly manipulated the bee into hauling its pollen from blossom
to blossom." The Botany of Desire, Michael Pollan
-----Original
Message-----
From: Honigman,
Adam [mailto:Adam.Honigman@Bowne.com]
Sent: Wednesday, January 29, 2003 9:08
AM
To: 'community_garden@mallorn.com'
Subject: [cg] Washington State Governor
Gary Locke - Sell him on Community Gar dens
Hey Washington State
Community Gardeners!
Governor Gary
Locke's rebuttal to the State of the Union Address was pretty impressive
yesterday night. Do you think he can be suckered into visiting a
community garden with his staff and speechwriters ( maybe the garden
being grown from the "Million Flower Compost") and get the community
garden idea as a metaphor for all of us pulling together to make America
better?
If Governor
Locke gets the idea and uses community gardeners as a metaphor for a
positive America ( especially growing food for low income citizens) maybe
the Republicans, hearing a good metaphor that they'd want to co-opt might
see the cg movement as something to support thorough a
line item in an agriculture bill, or through that "faith based
iniative/volunteer" bill that Dubya mentioned last night.
If we can get
something like the Federal urban agriculture / community development
grant dollars of the late seventies/early eighties restored, maybe
we might be able to expand programs, promote the community garden idea
thoughout more of this country - an antidote to that other metaphor, "Bowling
Alone."
But first we need to
get some politicians, wine, cheese and oysters into a gussied up Seattle
community garden and someone - maybe Seattle's mayor or its cg friendly
city councilpersons? to invite Governor Gary Locke and his speechwriters
in...
A thought for a snow
Wednesday,
Volunteer, Clinton
Community Garden, NYC
