Growing Community with a Greenhouse
It’s here…finally.
When the FedEx Freight truck arrived last Wednesday, we embarked on a unique unloading experience that should have required a forklift, but instead we engaged a small construction crew, a few volunteers, and the My Cup of Tea ladies to lug the pieces and parts of an 8’x16’ prefab structure across the parking lot to the back fence line.
Our greenhouse, an essential piece of our vision for the neighborhood, has arrived.
From an earlier post, you may remember that our plan is to refurbish, resize, and reconfigure our raised garden boxes. We intend to equip them with an irrigation system, too. Soon, we will add sinks for washing produce next to the greenhouse and a large tent for weekends when we share our bounty at our own farmer’s market.
You may also recall that the lack of fresh, healthy produce is a critical need for Orange Mound residents. The community is no longer home to a major grocery store and hasn’t been for quite a few years. Many in the area rely on unreliable public transportation or car rides from friends when they have the means to shop at a grocery miles away. When we maximize the produce from the gardens and the greenhouse and launch the market, My Cup of Tea will play an important part in mitigating food insecurity for our neighbors, but that’s not the most significant issue we will address.
The dearth of authentic community is the primary object of this initiative.
Whether downtown, Orange Mound, or Germantown, it is an unfortunate fact of today’s culture that we no longer know our neighbors well. We may only know their names because their mail ended up in our box. We rarely, if ever, socialize with those on our right, left, and across the street. Those of us who are able would rather drive ten or fifteen minutes to the grocery store to avoid knocking on a neighbor’s door and asking to borrow a cup of sugar. Our children don’t play with other neighborhood kids because the frenetic schedules associated with school and after-school activities leave little time for social interaction. And, let’s face it, we’re afraid and not sure who we can trust.
This “bunker mentality” may be sustainable for a while in affluent neighborhoods where money buys solutions and comfortable self-isolation. But for communities like Orange Mound where finances range from “tight” to “non-existent,” neighbors need each other – and not later, but now. Like many areas in our city, Orange Mound residents contend with serious crime and the sound of gunshots almost daily. Police frequent the area and cameras record the evil deeds of hooded and masked figures who often go unidentified. It is no wonder that few sit on their porches or venture outside the relative safety of their homes to interact with other human beings. And yet, one of the most effective strategies for reducing crime is neighbors looking out for each other.
A few months ago, we received our formal designation from the Memphis Police Department to lead a Neighborhood Watch on our block. We’ve met twice with a dozen or so neighbors who are enthusiastic and hopeful about what we can do together to make the neighborhood safer. It’s a start, but there is much more we can do.
A vibrant farmer’s market will draw neighbors from surrounding blocks to stock up on vegetables and see demonstrations. We will tell them about what we do at My Cup of Tea and how they can be a part of Neighborhood Watch. Maybe they will tell us or others there something about themselves – what they plan to cook with the vegetables, how many grandkids they have, or if they’ve always lived in Orange Mound. Maybe they will remember our faces or even our names, and we’ll try hard to remember theirs, too. And maybe, just maybe we will, “Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.” (Gal. 6:2)