The Massachusetts Avenue Project (MAP) is housed on Grant Street where the public library once stood. The original Massachusetts Avenue site of MAP fell victim to arson in 2005, necessitating the move.
If this sounds like a tale of woe, be assured that it is not. The story of starts, setbacks and rebirths simply reflects the tenacity of the youth who are fully invested in this program along with their highly apt and caring mentors.
The Growing Green gardening program was begun due to a high number of farmable vacant lots in the neighborhood, along with the fact that within the 55-block area of the west side, 38 percent of the residents are under the age of 18, though it serves youth from all over the area.
Part of the reason for starting the program dealt with the limited access the neighborhood has to fresh, affordable produce. This low ‘food security’ was determined by a University of Buffalo study that looked at proximity of grocery stores, as well as transportation issues. Consider that only 50 percent of area households have access to a car, and the need for available food options becomes obvious.
Also a Community Supported Agriculture center (CSA), MAP is a drop-off site for community members who contract with Native Offerings Farm to receive a bag of organically grown food each week, beginning with greens in June and continuing through the winter with apples and root vegetables. The 200 participants can also contract for meat, eggs and honey, and fruit shares, and they can opt for large, small, or individual quantities.
Growing Green employs 25 to 30 youth part time for eight weeks each summer through the summer youth program. They still farm the nearly ½ acre of land they own on seven adjacent city lots, but the lack of an edifice there has put a crimp in their style. In addition, the community dinners they held weekly are now done through a private residence, which undermines certain elements of independence and greater public participation.
Enter Kevin Connors, adjunct professor of the University of Buffalo School of Architecture and Planning. Connors, the principal of Kevin Connors and Associates Architecture has a plan to build a straw bale structure as a greenhouse for the Growing Green gang. Straw bale structures generally employ bales like bricks within a wood frame, and they are plastered over to give the look of a southwest adobe style house.
They do own a house on Massachusetts, but it needs to be raised or rehabbed, and they haven’t fully explored the options as of yet. Their objective, however, is to become a Garden Resource Center, supplying resources and education to help low-income people start their own gardens including a bed building and tool lending program, selling plants and seedling, and holding gardening, cooking and food preservation classes. They would also have a food micro-enterprise and retail center in the Grant/Ferry Commercial District, and maybe even a tourist stop, with the amount of curiosity a straw bale structure could generate in this part of the country.
Pick up March's edition of Buffalo Rising Magazine (on stands now) to learn more about the impact Growing Green and MAP have on the youth they serve.