Great Green Idea: Green Living: Volunteers Bring the Green to Detroit

Volunteers Bring the Green to Detroit

By Jillian Fellows

It's a beautiful day in Detroit. School is out for the summer, the sun is shining, and in gardens all over the city suburban teenagers are hard at work weeding, shoveling, and planting. Through the organization Summer in the City, high school volunteers get the chance to work in Detroit and make a very green difference in the lives of its residents.

Summer in the City is a nonprofit founded in 2002 that helps high schoolers fulfill their community service hours in three areas of work, paint, play, and plant. Volunteers help paint murals, run day camps and tutoring programs, and provide much-needed help to urban gardens. The gardening component of Summer in the City is the newest, but it is making a big impact.

"Summer in the City has helped popularize the agricultural movement in the Southeast Michigan area," said gardening director Henry Schneider. "Many of our volunteers come from affluent suburban communities, and find the idea of farming in Detroit silly at first. While some are hesitant to get their hands dirty at first, our staff members are pretty good at getting kids interested in Detroit agriculture."

Volunteers work at many urban gardens and farms around Detroit throughout the summer and get the chance to experience many different forms of gardening.

"We work with around twenty different agricultural sites every summer," said Schneider. "Some of these are small community gardens, and others are large farms. Our most popular garden site is probably Catherine Ferguson Academy. This school for teen-mothers is also home to a farm with a horse, goats, chickens, rabbits and other animals."

Summer in the City, in collaboration with neighborhoods, schools, and organizations such as The Greening of Detroit, has helped put the Motor City at the forefront of the urban gardening movement.

"Perhaps the biggest reason Detroit is on the edge of the urban agriculture movement is the simple fact that we have a lot of open land," said Schneider. "This open land presents a challenge for Detroiters, and agricultural leaders are being drawn here."

Summer in the City crew member Andrew Weiner works daily with volunteers at garden sites and witnesses firsthand the urban gardening movement in Detroit.

"Summer in the City provides the manpower to the ongoing urban gardening revolution," said Weiner. "The amount of daily progress we accomplish is staggering. We also educate our volunteers, most of whom are from the suburbs, about the food crisis in Detroit and hope to get them interested in the cause."

Weiner sees a number of benefits from urban gardening and how the movement can impact the future of Detroit.

"I decided to get involved because I wholly believe that Detroit has the potential to become an urban hub once again and urban gardening is going to play an increasingly vital role," said Weiner. "First and foremost is the simple availability of fresh, organic food to communities that have been without healthy options. People eat healthier, slowly increasing demand for produce and other healthier foods. This demand creates a market, allowing people previously growing for themselves to sell their crops, stimulating the economy at a vital level."

Schneider elaborated on the benefits of urban gardening for city residents.

"More recently, urban farms are finding ways to make growing and selling food in urban areas a more economically viable industry," said Schneider. "Many of the groups we work with employ local young men and women to help grow and sell fruits and vegetables. This is helping to get some money flowing through struggling neighborhoods."

Another benefit of urban gardening within Detroit is finding an outlet for available land to beautify the area and raise property value. "Gardens are many times in abandoned lots, which there are an overwhelming number of in Detroit," said Weiner.

The Summer in the City volunteers toil away for five hours a day, four days a week, and at the end of a hard day's work, they come away with a new perspective of Detroit and urban gardening.

"The volunteers, most importantly, simply become aware of the food crisis in Detroit. Detroit has a "food desert" status; there are no major grocery stores and few places to buy healthier foods. It's not a widely publicized problem, so hands on immersion in urban gardening is key," said Weiner.

Schneider hopes that volunteers are able to take what they learn and use it in their own lives.

"The places we work in are drastically different from the places many of our volunteers live, and I think many actually find it to be an exciting experience," said Schneider. "I think it gets volunteers to ask themselves very important questions about sustainability and ecological friendliness in their communities. After a day of discussing food issues with volunteers, we hope that they go home and begin similar discussions with their families."