Green House in Full Effect

The Garden District's green house is up and running. Thanks and praises to everyone who lent a hand. 

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Luke 12:48

We have started construction on our first greenhouse. The greenhouse will allow us to maximize our yield in the winter months and to increase our profitability.

Pictured above is Walter and Kelly, two neighbors and workers in the garden. Walter is one of the garden founders and has been a constant source of inspiration,wisdom, and enthusiasm. Kelly is a lively neighbor, always smiling and helpful. Maximum respect to everyone who has lent a helping hand!

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LUKE 12:48

Non-Profits: A Successful Model for Meaningful Change? Part 2

     Non-profits make community activism too easy and breed waste, laziness, hypocrisy and ineffectiveness. To illustrate this point we will use an example from our wonderful city, New Orleans. The Holleygrove Market and Farm (HMF) operates in a similar fashion to most “successful” non-profits. In other words, they purport to serve the community and even claim to have vast community support when in actuality they impose their external views and values on a non-receptive population. The HMF portrays itself as an established and cherished part of the Holleygrove neighborhood. It describes itself as follows:

“Through our twice weekly produce market, community gardens, and mentor farmers we are able to provide residents with an affordable option for fresh, local produce as well as resources and space to cultivate their knowledge of growing healthy food.”

The reality is starkly different. It would be hard to imagine how after three plus years, HMF could be any more divorced from its community. As a former resident of Holleygrove and a former volunteer at HMF I feel confident in saying that their self-description is inaccurate, and their actions ineffective. On market days, residents of Holleygrove are conspicuously absent and instead there are a multitude of Mid-City, Carrolton, Fontainebleau, and Garden District residents ready and willing to pay the prices that deter neighborhood residents. Holleygrove residents are also virtually non-existent among the massive amounts of volunteers that consist primarily of Tulane and Loyola students. On the HMF homepage, the “What’s New” section reads as follows:

“11/12 Weekly produce box, 11/12 New recipee: Green Goddess Dressing, 11/12 New recipe: Tahini Salad Dressing, 11/12 New recipe: Stir fry, 11/11 Yoga at the Market”.

Instead of offering recipes, products, and activities that the community is familiar with and can afford, HMF offers Tahini dressing and yoga. This is a perfect example of HMF’s disregard for the existing cultural and economic reality of the community as well as HMF imposing its cultural values and proclivities. In addition, when one leaves the immediate vicinity of HMF very few residents know what HMF actually is or does and some have never even heard of it, and all this despite the amazingly central location next to one of the major parks in Holleygrove. Despite all of this, HMF gets wonderful press and is very well regarded among the upper-middle class liberal community. HMMMMMM….

None of this is to discredit or take away from the dedicated, well-intentioned employees and members of HMF. Rather, the purpose is to illustrate the real world manifestations of a typical non-profit model. Non-profits are expected and encouraged to seek massive grants and donations. This huge influx of money - in addition to the other problems it causes – promotes waste, laziness, hypocrisy and ineffectiveness. In order to build a successful, long-term community organization, the COMMUNITY needs to be the foundation! The community cannot merely be extended token participation but must be the FOUNDATION! This takes hard work. Work in the community means finding out what the community wants and how it wants to achieve those ends. Community work necessitates massive amounts of human interaction. Human interaction cannot be boiled down – as it so often is by non-profits – to going door to door or having friendly conversations. Community work is only truly meaningful when it ceases to be work, when it becomes a way of life. In order for this to happen, one must live in a community and share in the joy, sadness, problems, and solutions of that community. This human element is indispensible and must form the foundation of any organization if it is to meaningfully impact a community.

It is precisely this human element that HMF and other non-profits avoid. We are not saying that skipping this crucial step is a conscious diabolical decision of any group or individual. That is not the point of this critique. Rather, we are saying that the accepted non-profit model promotes the avoidance of a human foundation and replaces it with an ECONOMIC foundation. With massive amounts of money at their fingertips - from grants, donations, and tax deductions - non-profits waste massive amounts of materials, money, and labor. Instead of being resourceful and plugging into the community for free, cheap, unused materials and labor, non-profits use their money to buy the newest, nicest, shiniest materials. Although the result may be a nice shiny, state-of-the-art building – see HMF – it also will have wasted materials, money and labor that could have been used much more efficiently, and had more of a benefit on the community. For example, currently HMF uses a combination of buying brand new, expensive, superfluous equipment and using massive amounts of volunteer labor. If instead they were to be more resourceful – i.e. using materials already in there community – they could be more sustainable while simultaneously saving enough money to employ community members – instead of external volunteers – in meaningful work.

Laziness may not be the right word. We are sure that the employees are very hardworking individuals. However, as mentioned above, the accepted non-profit model is extremely conducive to circumventing the process of becoming one with the community. This process is the most important part of any truly successful community organization because it creates a solid foundation of support and legitimacy. It is also the most labor intensive, risky, time-consuming step. The combination of skipping this step and making up for it with money is incredibly dangerous and irresponsible. Throwing money at problems devalues hard work, communion and dissolves community bonds by making things easy. As a result, community members are denied agency and a sense of meaningful participation in the project. This shiny veneer and hollow core is precisely why many non-profits - although not well respected, utilized or even known in the communities in which they are located - are still venerated and hailed as a success by the media and upper-middle class.

The inevitable result of following this economic model is a non-profit which professes one thing, but the reality is completely different. This discrepancy between rhetoric and action is the definition of hypocrisy.

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LUKE 12:48

Wheels!

We finally got a truck!! We saved up and and got a beautiful 1992 Ford F-150, Big Red. She is spacious, smooth, rides very well and above all she's legal!! Registered and insured. Suck on that NOPD! 

Big Red has already been a HUGE help, allowing us to haul manure, dirt and materials. Also, having a truck means we no longer have to hit up friends to use theirs (much respect to Macon "the Garden Guy" Fry and Coach Perez!!).

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LUKE 12:48

Non-Profits: A Successful Model for Meaningful Change? Part 1

      Non-profits provide an economic, rather than a human incentive to support justice. The huge tax incentives that accompany non-profit status highly encourage and facilitate the solicitation of donations. These donations are given for any combination of four main reasons: substantial tax breaks, to look good in the public eye/assuage guilty consciences, genuine care and support.

When an individual/corporation donates x amount of money to a non-profit, they end up paying significantly less than what they actually donate because of the accompanying generous tax deductions. These tax incentives encourage individuals and corporations to donate money and property to organization that they may not support if the tax incentives were absent.

Not only are donations financially beneficial to the donor, they also have the added benefit of providing them with free positive publicity and easing their guilty conscience. This publicity is manifest in numerous forms like naming buildings after donors, putting donors’ names on plaques, sings, in speeches, newsletters etc. Donating for selfish, self-aggrandizing reasons is disingenuous at best. Using the environment, the poor, or any other cause or group for one’s own personal image is not only exploitative but it perpetuates the relationships that necessitate such donations in the first place. If I throw money at misery in order to assuage my conscience or to better my image, I then have a vested interest in that misery and need it to continue in order to serve my purpose.

Another big reason many people donate to certain non-profits is because they genuinely care about and support the issue/s an organization is addressing. We will further discuss how this can be problematic in point 3.


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LUKE 12:48

Pitch NOLA

Last Wednesday we participated in the Pitch NOLA competition. The competition was more show than substance and was filled with fake people. Fake people are REALLY good at smiling. That being said, we benefitted greatly from the competition in many ways. We gained clarity and insight into what we do NOT want Delachaise Community Gardens to become. We met a handful of genuine and potentially helpful people. Not to mention we won $500 which will go towards getting insurance on our new (18 year old) truck.

http://tulane.edu/news/newwave/112210_pitch.cfm


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LUKE 12:48

Non-Profits: A Successful Model for Meaningful Change? Introduction

“We should be sustainable” Jim told me numerous times.

I tried to tell him that becoming a 501(C)(3) (non-profit) is sustainable. I tried to MAKE him understand that we would only accept grants when there were no strings attached, when we and the community could decide what to do with the money, unburdened by any external influences dictating or influencing our decisions and direction. Although, this line of reasoning contains buzz-words, trendy themes and may sound great, it masks the real issues. For a long time, this line of reasoning was gospel to me. It made sense, it was simple, tried and tested. Or so I had been conditioned to believe.

The frigid wind tore at my skin as I sped back home late last night. Like most people in Central City, when I arrived home I was greeted by air unencumbered by insulation, which even in balmy New Orleans means COLD when in the month of November. I immediately jumped in the shower to take refuge from the freezing temperatures (roughly translated as below 60 degrees in New Orleans). As the warm water flowed over my body, thoughts flowed through my mind. I thought about the letter my brother wrote me that I re-read the day before, I thought about some drills to incorporate into the next soccer practice, I thought about how conflicted I was because I REALLY had to pee but I was SO comfortable in the warm shower. Then, like one of the Three Stooges, it hit me! It was clear, resoundingly clear, embarrassingly clear: sustainability and 501(c)(3)s are incompatible!!

Non-profits purport to tackle all sorts of social problems. They are generally viewed as creative, caring, and dedicated and they go to great lengths to present themselves as such. They present themselves as answers, as models for a better society. If only everyone were as creative, caring, and dedicated as non-profits, the world would be a better place. But whether they are aware of it or not, all of their flowery language and warm feelings serve as a smokescreen, a distraction from real solutions to VERY real problems. Of course there are all different kinds of non-profits with all different kinds of goals, visions and impact. The fact that many non-profits may be doing great work however does not change the fundamental reality that they are all dependent upon and beholden to the corrupt system that created and perpetuates the inequalities they seek to change. 

Becoming a non-profit is extremely financially beneficial. Non-profits are exempt from all federal taxes (excepting employee taxes) as well as state sales and property taxes in most states. But more importantly for most non-profits, their 501(c)(3) status makes them eligible to receive certain private and government grants and low-interest loans that they would otherwise be unable to receive. Additionally, being a non-profit allows an organization to solicit donations from individuals/groups that provide the donor with huge tax-deductible incentives.

These tax exemptions, tax incentives, grants and low-interest loans are tantamount to government subsidies and are problematic for four main reasons: 1.) They provide an economic, rather than a human incentive to support justice 2.) They are based on an economic foundation, making community activism too easy and breeding waste, laziness, hypocrisy and ineffectiveness 3.) They define the parameters of what are socially acceptable and effective means of community activism. 4.) They reinforce boundaries between the “helpers” and the “helped”.


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LUKE 12:48

Above is a typical blighted lot in New Orleans. It is overrun with weeds (this lot had been completely mowed down only 2 months before this picture), and littered with chip bags, beer cans, condoms, needles, glass, assorted building materials and all sorts of other garbage. The cream house next to this lot is uninhabited, as are the next three houses on that side. The Garden District community garden is located across the street from this lot and used to look virtually identical until it was transformed into this...

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LUKE 12:48

Growing a Community...

I felt alive, for the first time in a long time I felt alive. As I sunk my hands into the field of warm, rich horse manure a feeling shot through my body. My childhood pastor would be appalled at my devilish, heretical blasphemies, but for the first time in my life I felt the presence of God, in horse poop.

For the past few weeks I have been working with kind, beautiful people in the Uptown area of New Orleans, on the edge of Central City. The community is riddled with drugs, bled by malicious police brutality, afflicted by unemployment and homelessness and slapped in the face by the nearby ostentatious wealth and comfort of St. Charles and the Garden District. In the matter of a few weeks, through the power of community, a jungle inside the concrete jungle of New Orleans has been transformed into the beginning stages of a productive, fruitful, community garden. This work has not been done by construction workers, professional gardeners, non-profits, grant money, volunteers from Kansas, Kentucky or students from Tulane, Xavier, Loyola or by any other outside forces. This abandoned, overgrown lot on the 1900 block of Delachaise has been transformed by the hard-working, caring hands of New Orleans’ forgotten citizens, people typically labeled as “prostitutes”, “crack-heads”, “pimps”, “homeless”, “felons”, the true people of God. It hit me, Jesus’ words “blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth” (Matthew 5:5). It began to make sense; here were the “meek” inheriting the earth, literally. The presence of God was with us, in us, around us, in the dirt, in our smiles, in our community. Theology for me escaped the prison walls of my textbook and my church steeple and I began to live it, I began to feel the presence of the Creator.

There used to be a house on this plot of the land. Katrina came, the house went. Once we cleared the jungle, we discovered a microcosm that reflects the stereotypes about our neighborhood; liquor bottles, bent spoons, chip bags, condoms, beer cans. We cleaned it all up, threw all the filth away, as if symbolically discarding society’s dirty stereotypes. People would stop, watch, ask, talk, work, joke, smile, donate, laugh. Neil, a homeless man, neighborhood griot and handyman brought by some plastic in order to keep the weeds out of the garden’s paths. He stumbled across it in an abandoned house that he sleeps in periodically, ever since he could no longer afford the price-gouging rent rates of predatory landlords. Henry, a neighborhood bike mechanic and occasional bike thief who steals to eat, helped paint and assemble the raised beds. Estelle, a local prostitute and walking community newspaper made sweet tea and brought fruit and rolls for everyone to eat while working. George, an ex-convict and comedian sat by and cracked jokes and told stories to ease the effects of New Orleans’ famously oppressive heat. Camile, a former prostitute, a hard-working mother had a medical condition and couldn’t help physically, but brought by a bevy of assorted seeds. Gary, a neighborhood pimp, thirty-year long vegetarian, garden neighbor and neighborhood nutritionist informed all on the importance of eating natural and which foods provide which health benefits.

All of this is illegal…of course. What is legal that truly benefits the poor? Let me rephrase. What is legal and not paternalistic that truly benefits the poor? This plot of ABANDONED land is not owned by the people now working it. In our capitalist system of private property, we are criminals, guilty of trespassing. I briefly asked myself; “Am I a criminal? Am I breaking the law?” Then a more pertinent, more theological question crossed my mind…”Is God a capitalist? Is Jesus a capitalist?” Although it may seem silly, sometimes wisdom can be found in a wrist-band, “WWJD?” “What Would Jesus Do?”. Matthew once again sheds some light, "'They need not go away; you give them something to eat.' They (the disciples) said to him, 'We have only five loaves here and two fish.' And he (Jesus) said, 'Bring them here to me.' Then he ordered the crowds to sit down on the grass, and taking the five loaves and the two fish, he looked up to heaven and said a blessing. Then he broke the loaves and gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the crowds. And they all ate and were satisfied. And they took up twelve baskets full of the broken pieces left over. And those who ate were about five thousand men, besides women and children" (Matthew 14:16-21). How do "five thousand men, besides women and children" get fed with only "the five loaves and the two fish"? Through competition? Through private ownership? No indeed!!! Through sharing, through caring, through love, through community. God is not a capitalist. We must stop trying to fit God into our unjust societal mold. God does not fit! God is love!

This community service project has helped to shed light on our unjust society and helped me to reflect on the meaning of law in an unjust society. Whose law do I follow, the law of man or the law of the Word? The answer is becoming more and more clear every time I work with Neil, Henry Estelle, George, Gary, and Camille. The answer is becoming more and more clear every time I dig my hands in warm, moist horse poop.


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LUKE 12:48