Making a Garden Grow

Hello everyone, I’m Eric Shovein and this year I am serving with a brand new environmental program in Lansing called the Power of We Consortium. The program is rather unique in that it’s concerned with getting people in touch with nature, and restoring trails in order to do so, but also food security and nutritional education for people through the implementation of community gardens. Everyone says the green movement is “the thing to do,” but what I don’t think the naysayers realize is that although some of these things we are doing may be popular at this point, they are nonetheless positively impacting people on a regular basis.

My specific mission is to start community gardens on Ingham County Land Bank properties in order to turn urban blight, and government owned properties, into something more beautiful, and more productive. It’s actually one of only a few Land Banks with a gardening program in the state of Michigan. The program is also organically set up to bring food into food deserts (areas without any easy access to healthy food).

To somewhat digress, Land Banks acquire foreclosed properties when no one else purchases them and are put in charge of revitalizing them. The properties therefore usually end up being in lower income areas where the housing demand is even lower than other areas in this slumping economy. The gardens are therefore in areas where people need the supplemental healthy food in their homes.

Aside from the Power of We program and its ideals, this year of service has definitely been a challenging year. It’s challenging because I started with nothing other than an idea, but it’s also been very successful to this point because I’ve started the gardens I wanted to. I literally walked into my first day of service knowing nothing about gardening, and had no direction other than an concept for which I’ve strived to accomplish. From there I started to do the thing everyone loves, and networked for almost three months to find every community center and every gardening group in Lansing. It was definitely frustrating for a while, but as the network grew I knew the gardens would also grow.

Since the winter things have rapidly changed. I have currently started 18 gardens, all of which are growing fairly well. Each garden is feeding at least a few people, with some feeding upwards of 20 families, plus beyond just feeding, it’s getting people outside and providing outreach for the future as neighbors see and are intrigued by the new gardens.

Overall, I could not be happier with choosing to serve with AmeriCorps. It’s both a challenge mentally and financially, but the benefits for others and for you personally are amazing. Beyond helping the amount of people I have, I have been able to essentially run a business with a small budget backing me. Given very little supervision, I’ve been able to develop my own business plan; do outreach, fundraising, networking, volunteer, and worker management; and basically create my own blueprint for the future. Of course I think things can and will change in the future, but the leadership skills AmeriCorps helps develop within you are incredible. It’s an overall enriching experience that cannot be matched in most “real world” positions. Then again the real world is changing and programs like this are expanding annually.