People's District

Monday, November 7th, 2011

This week, People’s District shares three stories about and recipes from City Blossoms, a non-profit committed to kid-driven, community engaging creative green spaces. Today, we hear from Lola, City’s Blossom’s C0-Founder. Wednesday, we hear from Dionte, the 10-year-old “Mayor” of the Girard St. garden.

“When you look around this city, so many of the spaces are built by and for adults. Most kids feel left out of places, and their lives are full of adults telling them what to do. As an adult, I think back to the times when I felt empowered as a child, and want to bring more of those experiences to kids.

“At City Blossoms, we believe that kids should be able to build things, be tour guides of their own spaces, and be stewards for this city. We want to help build kid-driven, community-engaged, creative green spaces that integrate arts, healthy living skills, and environmental education to build community.

“When Rebecca, the other co-founder, and I developed this concept back in the 90′s, we had just fallen into gardening. We grew up in the city, and spent our summers at CentroNia. One day, they asked us to work in the garden. I knew nothing about gardening and watched what other people were doing, and just kind of followed along. It was incredible to see how that garden impacted the community, and how empowered the kids felt in their own space. From there, we decided to start City Blossoms.

“Now, we are very lucky in that we have the Marion St. and the Girard St. gardens as places for our kids to play, build, and work. Here, at Girard St., this used to be an asphalt play space with a few hop-scotch grids and a broken down basketball hoop. Now, the neighborhood worked to turn this area into a playground, and decided to embrace a green space where we can provide science-based and food-based activities for kids of all ages.

“The adults are here to help with the space, but the kids are really in charge. Honestly, if we all left right now, I am sure that the kids could run this garden easily for the rest of the day. They take so much pride in it, and know how to do most everything here. They thrust their hands in the dirt, and cultivate things that they can bring home.

“Our hope is that as kids take home fresh things from the garden and recipes, they can help educate their families on healthy eating. Now, I imagine that many of our families get a kid running home with a crumpled up bag of kale and say, ‘What the…’ We try and look at everything long-term because if the kids keep coming home with that same crumpled up bag of kale, that parent will eventually say, ‘I get it. My kid is harvesting vegetables from a garden, and we should learn how to cook these things together.’

“But, these things take time. What I learned in this city, is that if you only think in the short-term, you will not last. We believe in these kids, and want to empower them, so they can make better decisions now and in the future.”

I asked Lola to share a recipe with things collected from the Girard Children’s Community Garden at 1480 Girard St. NW. (Only the herbs listed below are from the garden.)

Lola’s Ranch Dressing

- 1/2 Cup milk or soy milk

- 1/2 cup lemon juice

- 1 cup mayonnaise (“It seems gross, but trust me, it is good!”)

- 7 or 8 sprigs of chives

- 6 leaves of oregano

- 3 sprigs of dill

- one clove of garlic

- pinch of cilantro

- pinch of parsley

- pinch of salt

Pulsate the ingredients together in a blender. “It’s amazing!”

Lola Bloom is the Co-Executive Director and Co-Founder of City Blossoms, a 501(c)3 non-profit organization dedicated to working with schools, neighborhood groups, community centers and other organizations to create spaces for children to use their creativity and combined strength and skills to learn how to grow and maintain fantastic yet functioning gardens. Learn more about and/or consider donating your time and money to City Blossoms here.