Focus on what's strong. Not what's wrong.
This is the essence of asset-based community development. It's also what sustainable community building looks like and how we can create positive change. By leveraging our strengths, we can provide better tools to tackle challenges and find solutions.
Parks are one of Minnesota's best assets. In Minneapolis, we have 185 neighborhood parks and a world-class urban park system with 7,059 acres of parkland and water, 55 miles of parkways and trails, 102 miles of Grand Rounds biking and walking paths, 22 lakes, seven golf courses, and 49 recreation centers.
The Minneapolis park system also has 12 formal gardens. Those gardens include the beautiful themed gardens of Lyndale Park, the magical JD Rivers' Children's Garden at Theodore Wirth, the naturalistic Eloise Butler Wildflower Garden, the iconic Minneapolis Sculpture Garden, and more.
Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board (MPRB) gardeners maintain the gardens with volunteers, while residents can grow their own food at community gardens.
Community gardens are one of the underrated gems of Minneapolis parks. Today, there are 11 community garden locations managed by MPRB, seven future community garden sites, and four gardens on MPRB-owned land.
Minneapolis Parks and Recreation wants to establish more community gardens in parks throughout the city. They are not alone.
"I want to see my neighbors raising food in their yard," says Jimbo Lovestar, the founder of The Intitute for Men's Health and Well-Being and a north Minneapolis resident. "I want to see gardens up and down [the city]. I've had a garden in my yard for 32 years so I want to see other people picking up on that."
"I want to see community gardens on empty lots. I want to see community gardens in city parks. There are a few. I want to see people working together to feed themselves and each other. Allowing people allowing. When people raise their own food, the sense of empowerment that's down inside is, how to put it, it can't be denied. It's so incredible and deep to raise your own food."
Jimbo Lovestar has been raising his own food without pesticides since 1980. By preserving his own produce, he has been able to eat an excellent quality diet year-round for very little money. He has been teaching classes on food preservation since 1985.
Lovestar shared his thoughts during the January episode of "Youth Community Journalism." The show's topic was the power of food and using food as a tool to build health, wealth, and social change.
Other guests included Princess Titus, the cofounder of Appetite for Change, a nonprofit creating better access to healthy food since 2011, and Cole Depierre, the kitchenbus coordinator for Sisters Camelot, a nonprofit feeding the hungry since 1997.
"Food is power," explains Titus. "I believe that food has the power to bring people together across cultures, across socio-economical separations, and zip codes and things that we celebrate. I think food is the tie that binds us."
But not everyone has access to food. According to Feeding America, hunger affects over 500,000 people in Minnesota, including more than 180,000 children. In 2024, Minnesotans visited food shelves a record 9 million times. That's an increase from 7.5 million visits in 2023, which was a 2 million increase from 2022.
"Anyone can relate to the feeling of scarcity," says Depierre. "That feeling of scarcity is a fundamental groundwork for the sort of things that we don't want to have happen in our lives. It's kind of the root of almost all things that go wrong. We just aren't getting the things that we need, let alone want. … Food is such an essential component to our everyday life, and so if we feel scarcity, scarcity around food, it can really be detrimental to people's ability to function on every level."
We have a food crisis. Many people cannot afford groceries.
Community gardens can ensure that no one goes hungry.
This is a cause for celebration. But the benefits of community gardens go beyond food.
Community gardens also can help reduce global warming by reducing carbon emissions, improving water management, lowering urban temperatures, improving air quality, and increasing plant biodiversity.
Minneapolis is adding a new park, Wedge Point Park, at 1920 Aldrich Avenue South in the Lowry Hill East neighborhood (the Wedge) of Minneapolis. MPRB asked youth to help with the park planning of Wedge Point Park. Green space is one of the things they want to see.
More community gardens are on the way in Minneapolis. Anyone interested in community gardening with MPRB can apply for a plot of land by Feb. 15.
After the due date, preference will be given to Minneapolis residents without access to land who plan to grow food.
Food is fuel. Food is medicine. Food is life.
And life begins the day you start a garden.
For more information about starting a new community garden in Minneapolis, contact MPRB’s planning division at 612-230-6472 or planning@minneapolisparks.org. To help with managing a community garden, contact the community gardening coordinator at 612-704-7948 or communitygarden@minneapolisparks.org. You can watch the "Youth Community Journalism" show about the power of food on the Strong Mind Strong Body Foundation's YouTube channel at bit.ly/youthcommunityjournalismfoodpower.
Eric Ortiz lives in the Wedge with his family. He is executive director of the Strong Mind Strong Body Foundation, a national youth and community development nonprofit based in Minneapolis, and associate director of research for The Pivot Fund, a venture philanthropy organization that invests in community newsrooms serving underserved communities.
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