Outreach 🌻 Infrastructure 🌻 Communication
Outreach/Support:Â
#1 Support garden participation by paying gardeners a Living Wage.
Work with County Commissioner and additional funders to allocate funding for stipends at garden locations that serve low-income and houseless populations. This will incentivize and support community participation in the garden for underserved communities in the ID.
Hire 2-3 individuals to do community outreach in the ID. Our community responds best face to face tabling at events and door knocking.
#2 Offer multilingual workshops for gardening skills, mental wellness, and community building.
The International District comprises many cultures that speak over 50 languages. Offer accessible and inclusive workshops and educational opportunities for gardeners to learn skills to support healthy harvests and increase biodiversity. Workshops provide opportunities to build community and outreach to new gardeners as we work together on projects that benefit the International District Urban Ag Sites and neighborhoods as a whole.
#3 Support a Green Youth Urban Ag Corp.
Plan for seven generations into the future. Seek long-term diversified funding streams to support 10-20 youth ages 14-24 in developing green job skills in Agriculture and Environmental Education. Educational Ag internships provide job opportunities, aid local growing initiatives, and give youth a chance to meaningfully and positively engage with their communities, while also taking action to mitigate the effects of climate change.
Infrastructure
#4 Prioritize sustainability and health equity, make the Bernalillo County Urban Ag Project Manager/Coordinator a permanent position with the county.
The Bernalillo County Urban Ag project has the ability to help support gardeners for generations to come. The County must invest in this program so that past, and current efforts will continue to build and sustain our local food systems in underserved communities and continue to promote community health and well-being.
#5 Support climate resilient gardens.
Gardens need to be adaptive to rising annual temperatures due to Climate Change. Shade structures, cold frames, and garden boxes and rows with southern exposure should be adapted for changes in hardiness zones (i.e. Zones 6-7 to 8-9). Cover cropping, composting, mushroom inoculations and other methods of soil building should be supported $$ and labor wise. Every garden should collect rainwater and have water-wise infrastructure.
#6 Create effective systems of garden support.
County, City, non-profits, and gardeners can collect data collaboratively by creating a public platform where participants can share data such as # and types of plants planted, increases of plant and animal diversity, # participants in the garden, and gardener learning opportunity stories. This will help gardeners share successes in metrics and qualitative analysis. Data collection can also support collaborative fundraising efforts and support leadership and teambuilding amongst the gardens.
Communication
#7: Transparency, Team Meetings, and Intentional Communication.
All Employees and Contractors with the County need to have monthly meetings to align priorities and efforts for each garden, have collaborative fundraising campaigns for garden efforts, and full transparency with budgetary spending at each garden. Gardeners must have clarity on points of contact, roles of supporters and leadership, when possible. Grants need to be accessible and available to community members.