@GRASSROOTS.ORG/San Francisco League of Urban Gardeners (SLUG)

Friday, Jul 03, 2009

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GROUPS THAT CHANGE COMMUNITIES

San Francisco League of Urban Gardeners (SLUG)

San Francisco League of Urban Gardeners (SLUG)
Mohammed Nuru, Executive Director
Bryan Lease, Community Garden Coordinator (EMail:slug1@creative.net)
2088 Oakdale Ave.
San Francisco, Calif. 94124
(415) 285-SLUG (7584)
(415) 285-7586 fax

Billed as one of the nation's largest urban-gardening programs and arguably one of its most creative, SLUG is not only responsible for some 100 neighborhood gardens all over San Francisco, but it has also added on strong economic-development and job-training components and is rapidly coming up with more.

An economic force in its own right in San Francisco's industrial Bayshore-Hunter's Point neighborhood, SLUG has a staff of 30 -- half of them full-time -- plus 25 garden crew workers and at least 70 young people who draw pay for 10 hours a week while they learn. Its $1.6 million annual budget comes from grants and contracts with the city Recreation and Parks Department to run its 40 urban gardens; if things go well, Mohammed Nuru says, the organization hopes that its planned economic-development projects will soon start returning revenue to bolster the organization's treasury.

The program began 13 years ago, when the death of CETA left a core of organizers who'd held community-gardening jobs under the old federal jobs program without an income; they organized SLUG as a non-profit community organization to carry on the projects that they already had under way.

Since his arrival five or six years ago, Nuru said, he has sought to expand the program's reach dramatically -- its budget has literally grown 16-fold in the past four years -- and to add economic-development, job-training, education and social-justice components to its earlier sole emphasis on fostering the preservation and development of community gardens in the city.

In revisiting its vision and mission statement last year, SLUG came up with the following statements, which clearly express its direction and goals: "Our vision is cultivating community through gardening and greening. SLUG is a grassroots organization that empowers communities and individuals with education and employment. Our gardening and greening projects sow the seeds of social justice, community, economic development and ecological sustainability. Our goal is to improve the quality of life through urban gardening. We believe in the power of the garden to transform individuals and communities. Anyone who wants to should be able to garden. SLUG makes this possible through community gardens, horticultural education, landscape construction, open-space maintenance, job training, youth programs and membership services."

It's rare and reassuring to see such a clear, plain-language and simple vision and mission statement, and SLUG's programs clearly carry them out. Among its many activities are:

100 community gardens, including the 40 public gardens it runs for the city and scores more that it has worked with neighborhood and community groups and sponsors to make happen. (In many "win-win" cases, Bryan Lease brings together community groups with local businesses, which donate money and willing hands to help neighbors build a garden; the donor goes on, but the garden stays, enhancing both nutrition and quality of life.)

The Alemany Youth Farm (and one or two other similar projects), in which 50 teenagers from SLUG's Youth Garden and Internship program have built a large community garden -- Lease calls it the "largest farm in the city of San Francisco" -- that has not only brought beauty to what was once a grubby vacant lot filled with garbage, but offered hope and dignity and a healthy alternative to dozens of inner-city youngsters.

"Enterprise" programs, finding ways to turn community gardening into jobs and income for participants. One active initiative, a wood-chipping operation, converts garden waste into chips and compost for citizens on a fee basis.

The organization also produces and sells "SLUG Wear," including T-shirts and caps bearing the organization's friendly logo, a smiling slug. Now under development, SLUG is going into the packaged-food business, selling herb-flavored vinegars and strawberry jam -- made in a commercial kitchen from produce grown in SLUG's gardens, packaged in attractive jars with bright labels designed by SLUG participants, to be sold (under the "Urban Herbals" label) through wholesale connections but also at retail in a new "SLUG Shop" in SLUG's offices.

All this only scratches the surface of an array of activities that include composting programs, education classes in schools and at community groups, compost-bin distribution, community outreach programs focusing not only on gardening but on peace and environmental justice.

SLUG sees the big picture and articulates it clearly in a view that deserves wide distribution. As Nuru and SLUG Youth and Economic Development Coordinator Joshua Bloom wrote in a recent newsletter, "As times get tougher in cities across the country, more and more communities are turning to gardening as a medium to address urban needs for education, employment and community development. Like grass sprouting through pavement, these community inspirations come in the context of tightening economies and shrinking federal and local budgets. Jobs are scarce and tenuous.

"Never has the time been so ripe for a national movement helping urban communities to revitalize themselves through gardening. As Congress threatens cuts to job-training programs and welfare assistance, national and local groups are initiating creative projects which hold enormous potential for reversing economic hardship, social instability and environmental degradation."

All the feature stories on @GRASS-ROOTS.ORG's pages are reported and written by Robin Garr, a prize-winning journalist who has visited more than 500 innovative grassroots programs in all 50 states since 1990.
Browse his book, Reinvesting In America, at Amazon.com.
Send him E-mail.
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