Case Study and Interview: Canticle Farm

Case Study and Interview: Canticle Farm

In this interview, I spoke with Robin Bean Crane, who talked about the numerous and wonderful projects happening in the urban farm in Oakland. After our interview, I headed over to one of Canticle Farm’s garden parties with my friend, Ishaana, and helped them plant some tomato seeds. I also took a few pictures, which are included in this article, but to truly experience the peaceful and communal atmosphere, you might want to go support Canticle Farms by attending one of their events. 

Q: Can you tell me what Canticle Farm does? 

Crane: We’re an intentional community experimenting at the intersection of faith-based, race-based, and earth-based activism. It’s a platform for figuring out how to live together across differences and how to serve our hyper-local community and neighbors. Our theoretical pillars are non-violent communication, restorative justice, and work that reconnects.

Q: Can you paint a picture of what you do at Canticle Farm?

Crane: Picture seven houses between two busy streets in Fruitvale (a neighborhood in Oakland), with all the fences knocked down between them. This creates an open, common, guiding space. 

These seven houses each have their mission within the larger whole. There’s a house that focuses on neighborhood work, there’s a house that focuses on restorative justice work, there’s about to be an asylum seeker program, and there was a house dedicated toward gardening and restoration. Our mission is to learn together in a beautiful way. 

We have many different land projects that also fulfill this mission, such as rainwater garden beds, demonstration projects for our neighbors (on how to grow edible and native plants), and we’re trying to remove invasive plants and replace them with natives. We have a childcare program, where we have our neighbor’s kids over and take care of them. We also have a program with high schoolers, and on Thursdays we do food distribution and give out free food and herbal medicine consultations. There’s an interfaith service on Sunday, and we’re about to open a community kitchen project. It’ll be exciting where the community can come. A living, learning laboratory. 

Q: Can you talk about your resilience hub work some more? 

Crane: We have a solar panel and battery project. Part of the work with a resilience hub is that, when sh*t goes down, people can come and find resources. We also have food distribution services, so we want to be a place where people in the neighborhood can come, even when there’s not a disaster. 

People can also come and learn about the Earth. We have a water remediation project, where we’re putting in drought-resistant plants and water remediating plants, and then filtering the water through pumping it from this really old well. We then pump that water into a fish pond, and there the fish poop and add nutrients to the water. This then gets funneled to the plants that clean the water, and then it makes its way down the land, so the creek gets cleaner and cleaner. This ties in to the creek restoration project, where we invite anyone and everyone to come help us “daylight” this creek. 

It’s really deep to me, because this water has been in cement tunnels and underground for centuries and generations, and now it will get daylighted and be around bees and birds; the ecosystem will be alive again. That’s exciting! We’re inviting people to come and restore the riverbanks. 

Little demonstration projects like that are part of what it means to be a resilience hub, as well actually distributing resources. 

Q: Going back to something you said earlier, you said you wanted to be ready for when sh@# goes down, whether it’s the solar batteries or growing your food. What kind of disasters do you see affecting your area? 

There are already the disasters of racism and capitalism, alive and well. That ends up creating food insecurity crises. So we’re working with our neighbors to avoid the charity model of food distribution, we want to plant a seed for deeper collaboration. 

How do we support each other past food? One thing that we talked a lot about is having crisis intervention training, and teaching each other self defense tactics that avoid calling the police and ways to intervene in escalated situations. That happens a lot in our neighborhood, and we’re trying to train each other around that form of crisis. 

In terms of natural disasters, there are earthquakes, and in that case we have our kits. We distributed a bunch of earthquake prep kits during a block party. We want to do more stuff like that: integrating emergency prep into fun stuff. In terms of fires, we distributed masks, and bought a couple of air filters for everyone in our immediate community. Another thing is the drought. A lot of our gardening work, rain garden work, native plant work, creek restoration work, is centered around how we live in a drought affected place and with water scarcity. 

Q: It sounds like Canticle Farms are reaching out to the people most vulnerable in the face of climate change. 

Crane: The people who live at Canticle, and who are in those populations most affected by climate change, have talked about how living in community is a part of the healing process. 

Also, a lot of our neighbors have recently immigrated, and still are getting their footing in this wild society of ours. We are a place for them to ask questions, like how do I navigate the school system? How do I fill out this paper work? We also serve the wider community. There’s internal and external service work, and we try to orient that around people who have been historically oppressed. 

It sounds like Canticle is at the nexus of a lot of different communities and identities! Can you tell us what’s in Canticle’s future? 

We want to expand our food preservation work with our community kitchen, and invite people to come work on  fermentation, canning, and preserving projects. We also want to invite them to use the kitchen space. Also, we hope to be able to stipend teams in our neighborhoods for them to do this earth-based work, whether it’s roles for youth to do food cooking and delivery, or maybe composting. We don’t have plans yet, just daydreams around taking care of our neighborhoods. No one gets paid right now, but maybe in the future, if we could stipend people, that would be great.  

Meet the Changemaker: Bonnie Borucki and the Ashby Garden

Meet the Changemaker: Bonnie Borucki and the Ashby Garden

This interview is part of an occasional series showcasing different inspirational community organizers who are part of the NorCal Resilience Network and organizing resilience hubs. Meet Bonnie Borucki and the Ashby Garden!

Ashby Garden, located in South Berkeley was founded in 2004. It started in an empty lot of the location and grew into a flourishing garden of many fruits, flowers, and vegetables. People here grow their own food and are independent of ongoing city programs. Volunteers also come by to help out with the garden and participate in community events. People also come together to share their knowledge of urban farming and grow food collectively.

NorCal Resilience intern Tracy Ngyuyen caught up with Bonnie to talk about this beautiful oasis and her role in it.

How did the garden begin? How has it grown and flourished?

We have a group of young people who are food activists and there were more vacant properties back then. They decided that this lot should be used for purposeful things for the community such as involving the community and growing food.

People who started the garden went to the books and asked who owned the land. We the flyered the neighborhood, had potlucks, community meetings, and eventually started classes and workshops. In the broader community, people have members and volunteers. We have garden members who pay for plots because it’s not financed. There are water bills, insurance. They grow whatever they like, grow and harvest, and share when they can. It’s a community space so it can be arranged for people to come and collect food. Or they can pick and distribute.

What does Ashby Garden hope to get out of the leadership training?

It’s difficult to stay with projects so trying to get people to commit is what we’re hoping. How do you commit and get other people to commit for a long time ya know? It’s also a lot of experimentation. Seeing other people can be incentives, and also going to a beautiful garden is another.

What are the short-term and long-term goals for the garden? Whom to you hope to impact?

Our long term goals are keeping the space, having it grow and thrive, and be part of the community. We’re hoping a land trust can help take it over. Our vision is to have a spot to build community by allowing people of many backgrounds to participate and contribute their best. Also we’re hoping for more community building overall.

The biggest impact would be to connect people with soil, plants, and support of other creatures. Water is also important and having an appreciation for these spots is also important.

What other kinds of projects are you working on in the community?

I am a co-director of Transition Berkeley, an organization that brings neighbors and community members together to build a more equitable, regenerative, self-reliant future for Berkeley. Projects we are working on include “Bee City Berkeley”, where we are planting pollinator gardens in Berkeley parks and public schools, and educating the public about the relationship between plants, pollinators, and our food. Another project is Essential Repair Skills Trainings, where we are bringing in repair experts in clothing, bike, appliance and electronics repair to teach these skills to high school and college students. A third project is Mobilize Berkeley. The group brings together UCB SERC students, environmental educators, faith-based communities, and other Berkeley residents to provide information on the state of climate change, ways to participate in a climate emergency mobilization, and preparation for the impact of climate change and other crises we are increasingly experiencing.”

Why is this work important so important to you?

“I’ve realized that the most important and satisfying work is to join with others in creating a society that lives in good relations to the earth and all the people and life forms that inhabit our planet. I recently heard a phrase that puts this work in perspective, “ When we have hope, we have life, and when we have life, we have hope”. To me this means that as long as we are living and thinking, we can make changes that will sustain a dignified, joyful life for future generations.”

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Supporting Food Sovereignty and Community Resiliency at the Oakland Peace Center

Supporting Food Sovereignty and Community Resiliency at the Oakland Peace Center

Photos by David Monical.

NorCal Resilience Network is launching a crowdfunder campaign in the coming few days. Stay tuned to donate to our campaign, which will provide direct support to BIPOC-led, on-the-ground resilience projects. Read below to learn about a previous project that we have supported,  and will continue to support through the crowd funding campaign.

The Oakland Peace Center made tremendous progress on their Black-led garden initiative and living food pantry this summer. After receiving funding through a Resilience Hub mini-grant from the NorCal Resilience Network, and with additional volunteer support, the Peace Center has created a much-needed healing space for their community to connect to the land. 

Ground cherries in the garden make some pretty cute figurines!

In addition to being a resilience hub in the NorCal Resilience Network, the Oakland Peace Center (find them on Twitter and Facebook here) is a community center that houses  forty Bay Area organizations– primarily led by people of color– and works to foster disaster preparedness and racial justice in their community. One of their core values is to build “strong connections among [communities] so that everyone is welcome, receiving care and compassion from those around them,” in the words of Malaika Parker, their Development Consultant. 

According to Parker, the garden is a community hub that exemplifies community nourishment, connectedness, and resilience, and was designed as a space to offer healing for community members most impacted by oppression. This includes providing spaces and resources to low-income folks in their immediate neighborhood, emphasizing support towards people of color. 

What we are building is centered in a long view of what is possible when we care for one another

Malaika Parker, OPC Development Consultant

With the uncertainty and troubles of the  COVID-19 pandemic, the Oakland Peace Center rose to the occasion to support their community. Tripling their volunteer engagement, the garden became a site of weekly volunteer-led grocery delivery for community members in need. This, paired with the support of the NorCal Resilience Network mini-grant, allowed the garden to get more food out to more people. The grant also provided the resilience hub with additional materials for the garden, including soil, planting materials, and safety measures for volunteers.

Looking towards the future, Parker notes that they are planning on extending the garden to have more edible plants, building an ADA garden, and adding a butterfly garden. They are also planning to add a food pantry for canned goods. “What we are building is centered in a long view of what is possible when we care for one another,” she adds insightfully. Through the support of volunteer members, donations, and the hard work of the Oakland Peace Center team, these plans can all be realized. 

As mentioned above, the NorCal Resilience Network is launching a crowdfunder campaign to support Resilience Hubs including the Oakland Peace Center. It is imperative to invest in grassroots projects, resilience hubs, and people-powered regenerative solutions, led by and for BIPOC communities, to combat the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, environmental injustices, systemic racism, and other inequities in our community. Please stay tuned to find out how you can donate!

Breaking Ground:  NorCal Resilience Lends its Support to a Vibrant Community Garden at the Dream Youth Clinic

Breaking Ground: NorCal Resilience Lends its Support to a Vibrant Community Garden at the Dream Youth Clinic

Photographs by David Monical

NorCal Resilience Network is launching a crowdfunder campaign in the coming few days. Stay tuned to donate to our campaign, which will provide direct support to BIPOC-led, on-the-ground projects. This article illustrates an inspiring example of the kinds of projects that we have supported,  and will continue to support through the crowd funding campaign.

Volunteers Create a Community Garden and Clinic for Youth with the Dream Youth Clinic

On July 27th, about 15 volunteers, wearing masks and socially distanced from each other, sweated away  on a cul de sac in Downtown Oakland to clear out old garden beds to make way for fresh soil and new life. They spent the afternoon clearing debris, pulling weeds and disposing of trash, and emptying the garden beds filled with unwanted gravel and dirt to make way for a future community garden and outdoor clinic. Behind them, a vibrant mural with hopeful visions of community members and hearts had been painted, a beautiful sight to look at. 

A beautiful display of the power of the NorCal Resilience Network, this was one of the Dream Youth Clinic’s work parties for their future community garden and outdoor clinic. The volunteers heralded from various organizations around the Bay Area – including Tract Trust, Green Life and PLACE for Sustainable Living–all Network members–and were working to prepare the land for the garden, which would soon be as beautiful as the mural behind it. They enjoyed smoothies from Network collaborator Essential Food and Medicine and made valuable work connections and new friendships. NorCal Resilience supported the project with two mini-grants.

Community volunteers work hard on preparing the garden beds at the Dream Youth Center work party.

Dream Youth Clinic, a youth site of Roots Community Health Center, is a youth-led, youth-empowered health clinic, co-located within the Dreamcatcher and Covenant House Youth Shelters; and one of NorCal Resilience Network’s collaborating Resilience Hubs. They offer free medical care to vulnerable youth in Oakland and the Greater Bay Area. Many of its clients often have had experiences with family violence, food insecurity, and/or sexual abuse or exploitation. Creating a peaceful space in the community is exactly what the Dream Youth Clinic has been accomplishing. 

The goal of the garden/outdoor clinic is youth-led and will integrate the youth in the design and execution of the garden, making it a space created for them and by youth. 

According to director Dr. Aisha Mays, it has been a dream of hers to create a garden, noting that in the past, their desolate surroundings promoted inadequate nutrition, isolation, and poor health outcomes in clients– she knew a garden that would also serve as their outdoor clinic would help to combat these issues and improve health. In April 2019, the Clinic had its first visioning focus group where youth were asked how they would like the garden to be created. They were asked, “If we were to build a garden here, what do you see in this garden? How does it make your body feel?” One individual remarked:

“Being in touch with my emotions and thoughts without someone else telling me to do it. Peaceful & community-like. Makes me feel safe. There’s not a lot of other spaces that make me safe or free to say and do things I need to do to feel like myself. Inner peace. Patience with myself. Letting go of all the emotions that I had built.”

Receiving seed funding from two NorCal Resilience Network mini-grants, the Chase Center, Planting Justice, and other foundations, the Dream Youth Clinic is starting to put its project of building a community garden and outdoor clinic into motion. To create a safe space to reconnect with nature, as desired by the focus group, the Dream Youth Clinic incorporated help from experts at Planting Justice to plan the Urban Garden Clinic. This clinic is planned to be a wellness place immersed in the garden with the intent of providing a unique juxtaposition of the clinic with fresh, nutritious food and a peaceful, aesthetic green space that can improve overall health outcomes for adolescents. Workshops at the garden will be conducted by local community members and will inform youth volunteers on topics including seedling development, plant medicine, medicinal gardens, soil health, and food as medicine.

Part of the grant money will be used to design and construct a water catchment gazebo to collect and store up to 250 gallons of rainwater. Prioritizing Black builders, the clinic will be hiring community members to construct the gazebo from sustainable and repurposed materials. 

The Dream Youth Clinic received a second grant from NorCal Resilience recently. This money will be used to pay stipends to the youth for working in the garden and community members for providing education and eco-friendly smoothies, and purchase vegetable starts and fruit trees to start growing produce. The Dream Youth Clinic finally broke ground on this project in July with the garden work day; after months of planning, Dr. Mays’ dream of a community garden and in Downtown Oakland is materializing. 

“We so appreciate the support of NorCal Resilience Network and love being one of the Resilience Hubs. We hope that the Network will join us in the fall once again after the garden has been planted, to celebrate our “grand opening,” commented Project Director Deb Levine. 

As mentioned above, the NorCal Resilience Network is launching a crowdfunder campaign to support Resilience Hubs including the Dream Youth Clinic. It is imperative to invest in grassroots projects, resilience hubs, and people-powered regenerative solutions, led by and for BIPOC communities, to combat the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, environmental injustices, systemic racism, and other inequities in communities. Please stay tuned to find out how you can donate!