Email about Site

Hi, Everyone!

As you know, finding the appropriate site of our future community garden has been the most challenging part of the planning process. We can count ourselves lucky that interest, finding people that want to help, and money/funding will not be a problem. In my experience and research, these are usually the most difficult aspects to creating a garden. I thought that I would send you the communication that has gone back and forth between myself and Parks & Rec to keep you up abreast of the park as a CG site possibility. Bill, from Franklin Park Conservatory, has gone back and forth about it being possible at the park, and we know that the Shadowbrook residents do not want it, so I hope that the park site will work out.

Here are the emails from oldest to most recent, my emails are in bold:

Hi, Tina, I have been working with Bill Dawson and the Growing to Green program in order to create a community garden in my neighborhood. He suggested that I write to you to talk about the possibility of a community Garden in Sycamore Hills Park, which is one of the sites we have been looking at. I would love to talk with you about this. Bill gave me your contact information, so please feel free to email me back, or I can give you a call on Monday. Thanks for your time!

Hello Penny! Thank you for contacting me. We are meeting internally tomorrow and will discuss Sycamore Hills. I will get back to you. Thanks Penny

Hi, Tina! Thanks for the quick reply! If you think it might be helpful, I would love to share some information with you about my research in the Sycamore Hills community concerning the garden (I went around to all 230 houses to talk to them about it). I handed out a pamphlet and a survey, which helped me to gather an incredible amount of information. Please let me know if this would be helpful to have for the meeting. If not, I will eagerly look forward to hearing about the meeting! Thanks!Penny

Hi, Tina, Any news from the meeting? I am not sure what Bill has communicated, but we have over 30 people interested in participating in the garden, and our big hurdle is choosing the site. We have some community land, but too many people are opposed to it being there for it to be a good community garden site. Our other option is the Sycamore Hills Park, which no one is opposed to using and gets full sun in a huge field, so our little & organized raised bed garden would look really nice there and would increase the use of the park. Amy

Hello Amy-We are completing a draft of Community Garden Policy. While it is not official, we have met with Bill and received his comments as well as discussed internally in developing the draft. Once we get Bill and our comments worked into the draft Policy, I will pass it along to you to see if your group is able to meet the qualification/required info. for the possibility of a Community Garden. I'll be in touch with the draft. Thanks