RCC URBAN FARM: WE NEED YOUR STORY

save Royce's plants!!

Give the garden back to the students in rcc.

I really like it I don't want the garden to be destroyed.

I worked with the Riverside Green Team at the time the RCC Urban Garden was created. We had a goal of creating multiple community gardens throughout the city. RCC was a perfect place for one of these gardens. I helped with the design of the garden, but then stepped out as the students and faculty took over. The garden is quite an impressive achievement. It fills the heart of the campus with beauty, it provides food for students that truly need it, it provides a quiet space for students in need of exactly that. Faculty advisors have the figures for how many people have participated, how many pounds of healthy food have been harvested and given away. I think it would be a great loss to the RCC community to destroy this garden. I can't conceive of a good reason to remove something that has been so positive for RCC students.

I first joined the Riverside Community Garden three years ago. A mere freshman starting college, I happened to wander into the garden. From the first time I laid my eyes on the small green plot of land amid all the gray industrial buildings and classrooms; I was drawn into the space. I was so excited to join and volunteer that I would often invite family and friends along with me into the space. I wanted everyone to have the chance to learn how to plant and care for a garden. The organic Urban farm has also made it possible for local students like me to have access to nutritious foods like fresh organic produce, all for free. Like many college students, I often find myself broke and struggle to afford fruits and vegetables. My family has been positively affected by the food I bring from the garden, grateful to enjoy fresh food that otherwise they typically couldn’t afford. Through volunteer hours, I have been part of an incredible community of humble individuals who care so much about sustainable living. I have built lifelong friendships, met my wonderful boyfriend and have been very fortunate to gain many valuable opportunities. The garden has consistently remained an open and inviting space for students to come in. Only until recently have I felt pushed out and unwelcome into the space. The day I had the unfortunate experience of having my bicycle locked inside the garden. The message was clear, even without the note I found after neatly posted on my bicycle: the garden was no longer available for students to use, and I could no longer enter. I genuinely hope to continue to take part in garden events. I enjoy taking part in the Student Art Garden Show, the garden screening nights, and volunteer hours. The garden has provided me with countless support and many significant memories and experiences I am appreciative for. I would be extremely disappointed to see it go.

The garden is one of my favorite place to visit on campus. I have showed many of my friends this space and they also love it. Since volunteering I have had more interest in gardening.

This garden means so much to so many students!! It adds so much community, beauty, and resource to our campus. Students need to be allowed to continue to enjoy the garden.

This garden means a lot to my son and I. I personally have put many hours into caring for many of the plots in the garden.

As a Master Gardener, I have been asked to come give various classes at the RCC community garden. While the garden was still new, I first gave a class on how to prepare the soil. Early on the soil was very hard, compacted, and dry, so it was going to need a lot of love and care to turn it into healthy soil alive with beneficial microbes and fungi, full of lots of organic material. Over the years, the gardeners tending to this garden have done just that, given the soil lots of love and care, each season working in more and more organic materials and mineral amendments. That soil is now alive and beautiful. Healthy soil like that is a valuable asset, and very hard to buy. I returned to give classes on what to grow when, how to harvest, how to start plants from seeds, and how to manage weeds without using toxic chemicals. I loved to see the happy faces of all ages eager to learn how to grow food and flowers. The garden has flourished, and it’s a thing of joy to see it. That garden is alive, almost a being of its own, a community of plants, insects, birds, lizards, and people. I have come to nighttime film screenings in the garden. Surrounded by so many like-minded people with a love for growing things, and a desire to help repair Mother Earth, I will always remember those evenings. Community like that is hard to find, and hard to replace. Please keep the garden intact and growing and part of the community.

Opportunity for growing plants is important for everyone. Connecting with each other in our community is also important. Please keep these goals in mind when deciding the future of this Urban Farm.

I remember being a student at RCC & they would hold movie nights and art days at the garden and I felt so lucky for this growing open space being kept by and for the students. In riverside there needs to be spaces like these to continue being where one can learn more about their own food

I urge you to keep the urban garden at RCC. The sustainable community built through the garden such as the Riverside food Coop is invaluable to our city and our future.

I was able to get extra credit for my health class last summer by donating my time to the garden. It was a great opportunity to improve my grade and also gives the school a better reputation for academic success.

This garden is a sacred space for me. I helped turn this parking lot into a garden and I literally got married on this soil. I was one of the founding members with the Student Sustainability Collective that envisioned this space. I started at RCC in the summer of 2009 and joined the sustainability club because they had similar interests and I was looking for a community at this (formerly named) "community" college. At the time, many club members were guerrilla gardening behind the student org building and utilizing an abandoned botany class greenhouse. We began with no space and little support but what we wanted was clear-- a space for students and community members to learn and grow food for the sake of community, nutrition, sustainability, social justice, and mental health. This space was always intended to be an ACCESSIBLE space from the start to serve ALL in the community. The idea behind the garden was simple: "Do you want to learn to garden? We will teach you." "Do you want to feel connected to this community? Join us." "Do you need food? We WILL FEED YOU!" Each of these topics were lacking at this college and this space has always been dedicated to fill that void. This was regardless of student status or major-- as all students, not just those enrolled in Botany, can benefit from this space. I graduated from RCC in 2013 just as the garden was finally up and running when I transferred to UCR for my bachelors degree in Environmental Sciences. In 2016 I returned to the garden (as a Ph.D. Student in ENSC--Soil Biogeochemistry) and exchanged my wedding vows with the same community that was built from this garden as witnesses (and officiant!). I never took the botany course at RCC but had I not been able to have access to the garden space because of that, I would not have has access to the community associated with the space. This community is what helped me in all facets of my life. Academically, it encouraged me to continue in environmental sciences,

In Spring 2019, I moved to Riverside and enrolled at RCC. Coming from a big city, I was surprised to see that a school made space for a garden/ urban farm. At the time, I felt quite misplaced, so I sought community by involving myself in volunteering in the RCC Urban Farm. I was not an experienced gardener, but the RCC Urban Farm community welcomed me and helped me learn the beautiful craft of fostering life in plants that fed our student community. The RCC Urban Farm further instill in me the drive to promote sustainability in a world that is currently experiencing climate change. The garden was open to students to enjoy the beauty of nature and be fascinated by the sight of the plants producing their fruits and vegetables. That spring, I received a position as a Sustainable Food Production Education intern, which I still hold today. My role has been such a rewarding experience, as I am able to see a direct impact made from my contribution to the greater cause of sustainability and food production for our community. My fellow interns and I were tasked with maintaining the entire garden, managing volunteer workdays, assisting with the distribution of produce, and conducting an experiment on sustainable food production. However, my role as an intern is more specifically tied to the experimental portion of determining the best water treatments for the highest produce yield in Riverside weather. Therefore, as the use of the Urban Farm changed, I have been limited to four garden plots designated for the experiment. The rest of the plots are designated for the new “Outdoor Plant Laboratory”. As the Outdoor Plant Laboratory moves along, changes are occurring that are not guaranteeing the original use for students and the community. The garden has become a locked space, in which students and interns cannot access without supervision. This has created an unwelcoming atmosphere in the former RCC Urban Farm space. It has been claimed that there are liability issues co

Please keep the garden. It offers fresh produce to the community.

As faculty in RCCD, I know full and well about the cultural importance of building spaces that sustain community belonging. The garden needs to be protected from the ash-heap of bad Admin decision-making.

As a K-12 educator, I feel that this community garden has a lot to teach to future generations; such as work ethics that are not always learned in a classroom. These include soft skills of team building, leadership, responsibility, caretaking, community and school connection and more. In addition, a benefit that students can obtain from the garden is mental and physical health. As the garden grows, our students grow. I am also an alumni of RCC. This garden however, did not exist when I was a student, but I wish it had. As a community member, I have had the privilege to be a part of this garden from its birth. Because if this garden I have had the opportunity to return to RCC as a volunteer and give back to a school that gave me a step up to become successful in my current life. I often share my experience of working in the garden and being a part of the garden with my students, as I anticipate its existence when they arrive as RCC students.

I love watching the cotton grow.

The Wood Streets Green Team fundraised through community-based How-to-Garden Tours, in partnership with RCC and its students and faculty to provide financial support for establishing the RCC Urban Farm. The local community continues to support this beautiful, civic-inspired, and student-led space, and we will advocate with our wonderful community partner, RCCD, for its preservation.