This episode is for anyone who has ever daydreamed about starting a community garden and for anyone who needs the boost of a good-news gardening story.  

Our guest is Jessica Letteer, who founded the Wilkes-Barre Area Community Gardens five years ago and kicked off a local movement of soil building and community gardening in an area marked by poverty, blighted soil, and food deserts. Jess’ home in Pennsylvania’s Wyoming Valley bears the contamination left behind by abandoned coal mines, and services and infrastructure are chronically under-resourced. But she and a small group of other volunteers reached out to their city council, solicited donations, and started a program that now grows and distributes food, teaches regenerative agriculture skills, and puts on community events—all for free. 

Longtime listeners will know that our co-host Erin Alladin also founded a community garden: Garden@Kimbourne Community Permaculture Project in Toronto, Ontario. In this episode, she and Jess compare notes on the steps they each took to start their projects and how they and their fellow volunteers kept them going. Jess also tells us about the process of establishing a nonprofit, about the other community organizations her group has partnered with, the ways they're funding the garden, and—of course—all the incredible projects they have lined up for the future.

Learn More:

The Wilkes-Barre Area Community Gardens Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/groups/wilkesbarreacg/

Organizations Named in this Episode

Eastern Pennsylvania Coalition for Abandoned Mine Reclamation: https://epcamr.org/home/ 

Food Dignity: https://fooddignitymovement.org/ 

Rising Tide Wellness: https://risingtide-wellness.org/ 

WIC: https://www.fns.usda.gov/wic 

The Horti Awards

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Timestamps

00:14 Introduction to Jessica Letteer

02:12 Introduction to Wilkes-Barre Area Community Gardens

03:35 How Wilkes-Barre Area Community Gardens Got Their Start

08:19 How Garden@Kimbourne Got its Start

09:58 Water Break: Wait Like a Seed and the Horti Awards

10:33 Concerns about Crime and Community Gardens

12:67 Healing the Community through Gardening

13:55 Becoming a Nonprofit

15:01 Partnering with Other Organizations

17:50 Food Dignity: Paying Farmers, Feeding People for Free

19:55 More Energy and Infrastructure Projects in the Gardens

21:55 Why Is Running All This With You???

25:36 Funding!

26:44 Gardening in a Former Coal Town

32:27 Creating an Accessible Garden for People with Disabilities

35:15 What's Next for Wilkes-Barre Community Gardens

36:18 Find The Garden Community Online

37:00 Shout-Outs

38:58 Outro and Contact Us