Fwd: Oral History Gardening Project

Hi, community garden community,

A friend of mine, June Blotnick, just got a grant for an interesting project 
with a Charlotte community garden set up by a community center, in 
conjunction with the group Charlotte Green. I suggested she contact ACGA, and 
I'm forwarding her post to you for comments and ideas.

Thanks,

Don Boekelheide
Charlotte, NC

  • Subject: Oral History Gardening Project
  • From: d* s*
  • Date: Thu, 26 Jul 2001 17:55:20 -0400
I'm  coordinating an intergenerational oral history project for the Wilmore
Community Garden in Charlotte, NC designed to honor our senior citizen
gardeners and inspire our youth.  The Wilmore garden was the first community
garden organized with the help of Charlotte Green ten years ago.  It's
located behind a community center and includes two greenhouses.  Wilmore is
primarily an African-American neighborhood.

The project is called "Cultivating Common Ground" and involves a group of
eight Wilmore teens conducting oral history interviews with 12 senior
citizens who have been active in the garden since 1991.  The youth will meet
three times a month over the course of eight months for educational
workshops, photography classes, interviews, garden workdays, and a pot-luck
supper/cooking night.

A collection of audio tapes, a video presentation, a book with photographs
taken by the youth, and exhibit materials for public and school use will be
developed as a result of this project.  While our goal is to honor our
seniors' dedication to the neighborhood and share their stories with the
teens, the youth will learn marketable skills such as photography, video
production, interviewing, book publishing and gardening.

I'd be interested to know if anyone out there has been involved in or heard
of other similar intergenerational oral history projects with community
gardeners.  I also need to raise another $26,000 to complete this project by
next June.  Please pass on any possible sources of grant money for this type
of effort-gardening organizations, historical societies, foundations,
corporations, etc.  I'm also looking for a national garden exhibit that we
may recruit to couple with this exhibit for our local history museum.
They've already had "African-American Yards and Gardens of the Rural South".
If you know of other similar exhibits, please let me know.  Thanks for your
help.

June Blotnick
seablotnick@mindspring.com

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