the new garden in its early days
The PHS approach to vacant land management serves as a model for several cities nationwide. Recently Philadelphia Green director Bob Grossmann received this inspiring letter from a greening champion in New Orleans.
Hello Mr. Grossmann,
If you remember, I had a conversation with you last December about forming a vacant and abandoned property management program in my neighborhood. Well, I wanted you to know that the initial work has been quite successful! We’ve implemented a passive strategy (demolition, mowing, fencing, and trees) on nine properties and have started alternative strategies on four others. This includes a community garden that’s already in its second harvest; a potential KaBoom! Playground for which we’re being strongly considered; a property that has been entered into the Communities Take Root fruit-tree orchard competition sponsored by Edy’s ® and the Fruit Tree Planting Foundation; and finally a Tulane City Center garden installation that will first be shown at the New Orleans Botanical Garden’s fall show.
This sort of work is very necessary for our neighborhood, and we’ve already experienced huge advantages in terms of improving visual appearances, deterring dumping, outreaching to residents, and improving neighborhood pride.
Our hope is that other neighborhood groups and the City of New Orleans catch on to this work and start implementing similar strategies for New Orleans’ 50,000+ vacant properties. With all of these huge leaps forward, we have been awarded $100,000 from the Greater New Orleans Foundation to bring our Vacant Land Management program into full operation over the next 18 months—I’m very excited!!
Thanks for all your help,
Alison Ecker
Grinnell Corps Fellow
Jericho Road Episcopal Housing Initiative
New Orleans, LA 70115
Thanks for sharing your story with us Alison; best of luck with your noble work!
Posted on August 24, 2010 by Daniel
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