Circle of Hope

please join us on our new website: click here!

Our Mission:

Is to resurrect dead or forgotten space in the city and make it life-giving to its neighborhood through intensive vegetable (and some fruit) gardening that is educational, reuses trash materials that litter our streets, provides food for neighborhood families, and simply makes things more beautiful.

Like Jesus, we are called to resist, and restore… We are aggressively resisting the trend to globalize and industrialize one of God’s simple gifts to us from Creation: food. Urban farming is a direct affront to the injustice, illness, and environmental degradation caused by the industrialized food production and distribution system. We grow and harvest simple, real foods locally (fruits, vegetables, honey, edible fungi and weeds, etc.) and share them with each other and neighbors in a number of ways. Many of the areas we farm in are “food deserts” where healthy, affordable food is difficult to obtain as corporate agri-businesses and supermarket chains refuse to provide their goods. We make the food we produce available through Community Supported Agriculture programs (CSA’s), farmers’ markets, “Farm to Families” programs, and other means. We also plan to share our resources and skills by teaching regular classes on gardening, cooking and nutrition, composting, rainwater harvesting, local food systems, and other ideas.

The areas we live and farm in are often (but not always) under-resourced neighborhoods with tracts of land that are neglected and forgotten, exacerbating the problems associated with blight. Ironically in these areas, the forces of gentrification and redevelopment can often make the issues long time residents have faced even more difficult, complex, and dominating. Our work as servants of Jesus seeks to resist the negative impacts of gentrification by forming a partnering, inclusive, educational, and supportive network for any and all interested neighbors to help restore their land back to generative use. We want to provide fresh, healthy food for neighborhood families, harvest rainwater for crop hydration, repurpose salvaged materials to new and creative uses, and clean up trash strewn lots and littered streets to allow the beauty of the area to flourish. We imagine these gardens and farms to be centers of life, community, and education for the neighborhoods they are in. Look at a 2011 tour to see it happening: http://youtu.be/hG8sVtrDzq8

Organization:

The Urban Farm Team was originally formed in 2004 and has been an active Mission/Compassion Team of Circle of Hope ever since. There are currently five working gardens/farms in the network, representing three of our four congregations.

As a network Compassion Team, we imagine ourselves as a “coalition of tribes” in a healthy and diverse ecosystem, a “team of teams.” We want to create an organizational structure that supports the varying and distinct natures of each tribe’s region and area of focus. For example, some farms are for-profit and run successful CSA’s, others exist to give all the food away. Others have a vision for discipleship and intentional community, and others have yet to be formed. We want to honor many variations on the theme that supports God’s redemption project of the world.

To support this vision, Jeremy Avellino serves as the Network Urban Farm Team Leader, and each garden / farm has its own leader. Jeremy represents the Circle of Hope Network while directly coordinating, serving and supporting each individual farm leader, who in turn is freed up to lead their teams of workers in the ways they see fit to accomplish their specific vision.

Members , Farms, and Gardens:

Jeremy Avellino (Network team leader) jeremyavellino@gmail.com

Hicks St. Garden: Mary Ward-Bucher (team leader)

Frankford Avenue Garden - Rachel Summerlot and Joel McIntosh (team leaders)

Germantown Kitchen Garden – Matt McFarland and Amanda Staples (team leaders)

5th and Diamond Urban Farm - Jessica Shoffner (team leader)

Gloucester City Gardens

Our goal is to come alongside of other organizations to help develop small, community gardens around Gloucester City in order to help bring about the reconciling work of Jesus.

In 2010  the Gloucester City Tree & Beautification Committee presented a proposal to The City of Gloucester City requesting permission to transform vacant city properties into community gardens. After receiving approval and some essential assistance from the Camden Children’s Garden, an initial garden was started on city property at the corner ofAtlantic & Market Streets.  Two more garden’s quickly followed, one provided by Max’s Seafood Cafe and one provided byHighland Park Church of God. It really is quite beautiful to think about faith communities, city government, and private business working together in a tangible way like this.

The overall purpose of these community gardens is tri-fold: 1) to beautify our city by utilizing vacant and otherwise unused lots 2) to provide a low-cost food option to our residents in difficult economic times and 3) to provide an opportunity for our community members to become more invested in the city and in their relationships with one another.

We are always on the lookout for new locations to garden, so we feel like the option of starting a new garden is always on the horizon. The gardens that have been begun need major workdays (shoveling new wood chips to the paths & mushroom compost to the beds). And with any garden, there’s the regular maintenance of watering beds & pulling weeds.

Hicks St. Garden

The Hicks Street Garden, founded in 2007, is a public flower garden located at 1835 South Hicks Street in the Newbold neighborhood of South Philadelphia. The mission of the Hicks Street Garden is to create a welcoming, safe and beautiful place for neighborhood residents of all ages and backgrounds. We are an important part of a community that has very few public green spaces. Many residents see the garden project as a way to make the neighborhood greener, restore the quality of life for residents and make the entire neighborhood safer.  The garden, maintained entirely by neighborhood volunteers, is part of the Neighborhood Gardens Association/A Philadelphia Land Trust.

We always welcome new volunteers!  To get involved, check out the garden’s Facebook page or contact Mary Ward-Bucher at maryjwb@gmail.com or 267-266-2811.

5th and Diamond Urban Farm

We exist not as individuals, but parts of a whole. Through reconciliation and restoration we can live symbiotically with the Earth and each other. The farm at 5th and Diamond will act as a liaison between people and the natural world. By providing healthy food, educational opportunities, unity among neighbors and direct contact with the soil we can begin to heal our community. By tenderly caring for the land, understanding nature’s systems and giving back to the soil we can regain necessary connections with the Earth. We want to join with the Holy Spirit as God builds the Kingdom in North Philadelphia.

This season as we are literally breaking ground on the space at 5th and Diamond and there will be much work to do! Be looking for clean-up days and planting opportunities in the near future! We are going to plant as many vegetables and herbs as we can this season. I have seedlings growing in my window and seeds waiting to be planted in my refrigerator. We are hoping to meet many folks from the neighborhood and encourage them to join us. The food that will be grown this season will be shared with the neighborhood and volunteers. Goals to focus on in these first few months include forming relationships with neighbors, testing the soil, cleaning up lots, creating a rain-water collection system, amending the soil, building raised beds if necessary and developing a compost system.

For more information or to volunteer contact: Jess Shoffner phone: 785.375.9393 shoffnerj@gmail.com

Frankford Ave. Garden

This farm is a collaboration of the young and the old working together and learning together. It has been shifting and changing for more than 6 years, but always proves to become a beautiful green space for neighbors to be proud of. Many people have dug there love, sweat and tears into that dirt. Figs, grapes and pears are tended, a wide variety of herbs, flowers, garlic, chives, chard, and tomatoes along with many other things are planted and harvested throughout the season. We share all the food and work with each other and the neighbors. It is important to understand this is a garden that takes lot of consistency and a deep knowledge of the plants that are already there. We love for people to be able to come, learn about the garden and help. We are working on having a calendar, regular scheduled days and work days for the big projects. If you would like to be a part of this farm project please contact Rachel Summerlot, thayloos@gmail.com Re:Frankford Garden. Please visit our blog theartichokeheart for more about what we have been doing.