BALTIMORE — The concept of community is the purpose behind transforming this lot into a garden.
It's not just any garden, but one that will provide produce to people who live nearby.
“This is just one of those spots that I feel like if we create this to be more beautified, it will actually enhance a lot of things that are around us," says Andre Patterson Jr.
Two organizations, Abe Nation Outreach Ministries and Pleasant Beginnings are partnering together to create the garden space in the lot on the 1700 block of North Calhoun Street
The same lot where the Freddie Gray protests began back in 2015.
“What Freddie Gray showed us is that we will stick together, we will come together, we want to give them a more positive reason to do so.” says Deashia Gibbs.
Deashia Gibbs says she believes transforming the space will unite the neighborhood.
“We all live so close together, especially in these row homes neighborhood like this and we don’t know, so I’m it’s very, very, very important for us to get the community involved as far as the cleaning. We have already started the cleaning, but still more to do. Is it also with even more portly their hands on cleaning and things like that is their ideas," says Gibbs.
And Andre Patterson Jr. agrees; he says this project is special to him.
“It’s something that I do sometimes myself in the morning. I go to a particular park; I walk that park, everything about it, the scene and how it looks. It adds to my morning, so that’s the whole concept. Here is to try to bring again beautified, bring more beauty into the city in this location and as far as we can go.”
Although the organizations have already gotten started with transforming the space, Patterson says there is a lot more work to do.
“Right now the main mission is we were just speaking about putting the buildings down so we can actually grow produce, so the mission is to get that down," says Patterson.
These organizations don’t want to stop at this one lot.
They want to obtain other lots throughout the city and transform them as well.
“So we can get these lots throughout the city, and we are growing our own produce, and we’re doing our own flea market, and we’re supporting others businesses, and that’s how we create self-sustainable neighborhoods," says Gibbs.
Andre Patterson says he feels like this type of project is one way to start changing the stigma associated with Baltimore City.
“The negatives, as always, it seems like it’s magnified, so it’s about trying to put something that can actually put something in the way of that because this is always what they know from around here is the negativity," he says.
The organizers say the goal is to finish the project within the next six months.
They also say they are open to suggestions from the Sandtown-Winchester community about what they may want to see on the lot.
