Talk Bronx New York

A Garden in the Bronx

How a small urban farm is helping one community eat well without leaving the neighborhood.

Along Third Avenue in the center of the South Bronx, the street is filled with McDonald’s and commercial fried chicken joints that fit neatly among rows of low-income apartments. Though the fast-food enterprise rakes in billions of dollars each year in the U.S., it has a particularly overwhelming presence in poor communities such as the South Bronx. The neighborhood boasts the highest rates of asthma and diabetes in the city, according to the city Department of Health’s 2006 Vital Statistics Summary. Growing up on greasy hamburgers and high-fructose soft drinks, residents often find themselves with little understanding of healthy eating and where to find better options.

Just around the corner, on 165th Street and Boston Road, there is something surprising for this area: A once abandoned lot overwhelmed by rubbish and drug dealers has been converted into a community garden called the Jacqueline Denise Davis Garden, or the JDD. This community garden is part of an initiative called Learn it, Grow it, Eat it, started in 2006 and funded by the Council on the Environment of New York City to educate teens about their health and their community.

“Community gardens are becoming a trend,” says David Saphire, the project coordinator of Learn it, Grow it, Eat it, or LGE. The venture was partially based on other urban farms that have experienced great success, such as Added Value in Red Hook, Brooklyn and East New York Farms in East Brooklyn.

While there are over 600 community gardens in New York City alone, Saphire says that LGE is one of the only initiatives that incorporates health education in high schools. The JDD, Wishing Well Community and the Model T gardens in the Bronx are all part of LGE.

In Saphire’s office, on the opposite end of New York City, located just across the street from City Hall, he explains how the idea developed. Saphire was teaching a nutritional program in local high schools in the South Bronx, touting healthy alternatives to the common fast-food pitfalls. Saphire, a self-educated nutrition guru who has been an environmental educator and researcher for the last 10 years, is a thin man, one who looks like he practices what he preaches.

Working in the South Bronx, it didn’t take long for Saphire to notice a gap between what he was teaching in his nutrition lessons and what foods were readily available to his students. The solution Saphire proposed: Teach the kids about healthy alternatives by having them grow their own fruits and vegetables. And, as an added bonus, make it free.

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Hunger crisis grows; food pantries can’t keep up with demand

An alarming number of food pantries and soup kitchens in Queens, Brooklyn and the Bronx are being forced to turn people away hungry, a new survey shows.

Demand for food pantries and soup kitchens has skyrocketed throughout New York City - growing by an estimated 20% this year, combined with an estimated 11% rise last year, according to an analysis conducted by the New York City Coalition Against Hunger.

Presently, 1.3 million New Yorkers - one in every six residents - cannot afford an adequate and consistent food supply and must rely on pantries and shelters, statistics show.

For its annual hunger survey, released this week, the nonprofit coalition polled 265 of the more than 1,200 charitable feeding agencies in the city.

The survey found that 76% of responding agencies in Queens said they didn’t have enough food to meet the rapidly increasing demand, and the case was the same for 67% in Brooklyn and 65% in the Bronx. By contrast, that figure was 36% in Manhattan and 29% on Staten Island.

Queens also had the highest percentage of responding agencies that reported having to ration food, cut back on hours of operation or send people away empty-handed.

In Queens, 67% of responding agencies said they’ve been forced to take such drastic measures, as well as 57% on Staten Island, 54% in the Bronx and 52% in Brooklyn. That number was just 30% in Manhattan.

Joel Berg, the coalition’s executive director, said the problems in Queens are partly the result of an inadequate social service system coupled with a fast-growing immigrant population.

But the startlingly high statistics citywide are evidence of the continued downward trend in the American economy, Berg said.

“We knew hunger was increasing when the economy was in good shape,” he said. “Now that the economy is taking a nosedive, we see hunger as one of the first indicators that there is a significant economic problem.

“When the economy gets a cold, lower-income people get pneumonia,” Berg added.

The troubling findings in the coalition’s report also reveal the devastating effects wrought by deep cuts in federal emergency food funding. President Bush has slashed discretionary spending for emergency food by 76% since 2002, including a $12 million cut this year, Berg said.

For people on the front lines in the battle against hunger, such significant losses in funding lead to painful and heartbreaking consequences.

“It’s been insane how much the resources have dropped,” said Christy Robb, director of the Hour Children Food Pantry of Long Island City, which serves several food pantries in the area.

SOURCE: NY Daily News

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