What we can build when we own something together

What can we build when we stop waiting for someone else to build it for us?

I’ve been thinking about that question a lot.

We often talk about what our communities need. More affordable housing. Better access to healthy food. Safer streets. More opportunities for young people. More places to gather.

We look to government, nonprofits, schools, foundations, and other institutions to help make those things happen.

And they have an important role to play.

But communities have something else: the ability to imagine, organize, and build together.

I saw that this year through students at Ella Baker Global Studies and Humanities Magnet School.

Students imagined what their school could become. They talked about food, plants, pollinators, art, outdoor learning, and places where people could gather.

Then they helped build a garden.

It started with an idea. It became a plan. And it became something you could touch.

That experience has made me pay closer attention to another idea taking shape in my own neighborhood.

The People’s Garden in Lowry Hill East is an effort led by neighbors Alissa Case and Vanessa Hoff to create a communal garden where people of all ages can grow food, access plant medicine, share skills, make art, and build relationships with one another and the land.

But the vision goes beyond a garden.

Case and Hoff are working to acquire an empty lot at 2505 Aldrich Ave. S and establish a community-held agricultural land trust that could protect the space for generations.

They want to create a place that the community can own, steward, and shape over time.

More than $14,000 has already been raised toward acquiring the land through more than 350 unique donations, while 112 volunteers have signed up to help create and steward the space. The goal is to raise $150,000 to purchase the land.

Case and Hoff have partnered with Twin Cities Community Agricultural Land Trust and Commons Land as they work toward that goal and explore a larger vision for community-held green spaces.

"The land will never be able to be sold for development and will be protected as a growing and gathering space for generations to come,” Case and Hoff wrote via email. 

They plan to begin meetings with a visioning committee to shape the community's self-governance structures, commitments, and agreements for stewarding the land.

That is a much bigger idea than planting vegetables.

It is an idea about who gets to shape a place.

Land is more than an asset on a balance sheet.

It can be a place where people learn, neighbors become collaborators, children see food growing, and elders share knowledge.

It can also be a place where cultural traditions are practiced and passed along, where people make art, and where neighbors can gather without having to buy something.

That kind of community infrastructure is difficult to measure.

But it can create possibilities that extend beyond a single program or project.

A conversation becomes a partnership. A partnership becomes a project. And a project can create something that lasts.

Case and Hoff envision The People’s Garden as more than a place to grow food. They want it to become an intergenerational community where people can share food, skills, stories, and wisdom, make art, and build relationships with the land and each other.

"We believe, as Myrtle Thompson-Curtis taught us, that you 'grow a garden, grow a community,'" they wrote. "We long to co-create space in our neighborhood that feeds both our bodies and our spirits."

There is something powerful about people deciding to invest not just in a program, but in a place.

Programs can end. Funding cycles can change. Priorities can shift.

But land, when held for community purposes, can become a foundation for something that lasts.

Sometimes the people closest to a problem are also the people closest to the possibilities.

Case and Hoff say their work has reinforced two beliefs: that meaningful change depends on interdependence and that collective gifts, skills, wisdom, and resources can expand what is possible.

The People’s Garden is a reminder that communities can create something they need together.

That may be one of the most important lessons for our neighborhoods right now.

We don't have to wait for someone else to decide what our communities need.

But the deeper question is what else a community can grow when it has a place of its own.

Learn more at the-house-of-possibilities.org/the-peoples-garden/.

Eric Ortiz lives in the Wedge with his family. He is executive director of the Strong Mind Strong Body Foundation, a national youth and community development nonprofit based in Minneapolis, and associate director of research at The Pivot Fund, a nonprofit philanthropy organization that invests in independent community newsrooms.