About

 

 

  • The Origin

The Garden Of Resilience is the  first community garden existing between the tri-community of Springfield Gardens, Rosedale and Laurelton. The green space represents a labor of love between schools, communities and grassroots organizations within the Southeast Queens communities. Three years ago local organizers identified an abandoned lot in Springfield Gardens by using the interactive map powered by 596 Acres.  The map identified that the land was owned by the City of New York and had the potential to serve as a green space. Grassroots organizations, DIVAS for Social Justice & Operation Clean Up worked together with local elected officials and other community stakeholders to  ensure the land was transferred to the NYC Parks & Recreation Department under the Green Thumb Program.

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  • The Process

Through the transformation process, the abandoned lot served as the catalyst to empower community youth from Laurelton to organize and petition local residents of Southeast Queens to sign a petition for the transferring of the land. Students from P.S 156, The Linden SDA School and P.S 132 collected signatures by the Laurelton LIRR station during rush hour while cleaning and beautifying the local space. After almost two and half years of planning, the community garden land was approved and on track to start the build out of the green space in February of 2020. In March of 2020 the United States entered a global pandemic affected with the onset of COVID-19 halting all businesses and activities within the city which halted the Garden’s progress . In response, the local organizers of the garden identified the challenge as an opportunity to bring community members together to address the issues of the global pandemic, in particular, the issue of food insecurity. While only being allowed to maintain the land of the potential garden, the founders made the decision to have all future produce grown in the garden directly donated to the community for free.

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  • The Mission

The Garden Of Resilience will stand as a beacon of hope and sets the goals of:

  • Providing nutritious foods, strengthening community ties, and creating a more sustainable food system.
  • Providing STEM/STEAM based activities for the greater community and providing the opportunities for local educators to utilize the space for learning.

  • Serve as one of the 1st interactive community gardens in New York City by utilizing Virtual Reality, QR Codes and Augmented Reality for a just and sustainable life in communities of color.

The garden is located at: 179-18 145th Drive,

Springfield Gardens, NY 11434