Gearing Up for BayBrook

I'm looking forward to my new American Studies course, but also nervous. It's not like anything I've done before, and I just hope I can contribute. You see, we're supposed to try and really engage with the BayBrook (portmanteau of Curtis Bay + Brooklyn) area with a project involving environmental and social justice. They're giving us seed money and everything. No pressure, right?

We're supposed to be defining our social mission, but the thing is, I think a mission statement might be the one thing I've never written before! While I'm sure those better qualified than myself will trump me--and that's a good thing--maybe it's something along the lines of, "To work with members of the BayBrook and greater Maryland community to help ensure the continuation of a program which provides enrichment in the form of healthy food and environmental education..."? I don't want to sound like we're swooping in and taking charge--how could we?--but neutral language sounds so wishy-washy, wordy, and corporate to me. Dilemma.

It reminds me of the reading Dr. King assigned about Placemaking. In it, Lynda Schneekloth and Robert Shibley argued that places in which we live need to be designed, created, and modified by or in concert with the people who are ultimately going to inhabit them; that coming in from outside, you can't automatically know the details that determine the best way for a place to function. As someone who's been living in apartments for far too long, that struck a chord with me. Working with residents and users makes so much sense.

Ideally, we're hoping to fulfill this mission by helping raise enough money to enable the hiring of someone to work as the manager of the Filbert Street Garden, a community garden in the area. They teach classes about plants to schoolchildren and such. My Professor, Dr. King, has had classes work with the garden in the past, and it seems like a really nice place based on this video:



I really want to go and see it in person soon, whenever the class goes in groups. I miss gardening in the little patch my mom kept, not to mention when I did landscaping professionally, and it's great for any kid to get that experience. Heck, like I said, I'd like to remember that experience!

Here's crossing my fingers that my (admittedly nerdy) skills come in handy for those I'll be working with.