“It is the long history of humankind (and animal kind, too) that those who learned to collaborate and improvise most effectively have prevailed.” – Charles Darwin

Welcome back!

We’d like to share our progress so far on our community project with Riley Park Community Garden and keep you posted on what’s to come from our team! We will outline our weekly objectives and achievements so far, share a moment of significance and lay out our upcoming objectives and strategies to achieve them. Take a look at our Proposal Report for some detailed insight on our project framework and trajectory.

Weekly Objectives and Achievements:

 

	Objectives	Achievements
Week 5+6	Formulate a cohesive outline of our project Collaborate on a detailed document mapping out our project	Created a Proposal Report 1st blog posting
Week 7+ 8	Identify moments of significance in the project thus far	2nd blog posting

Moment of Significance:
What: A turning point in our project happened right after we met with our community partners. Walking into our meeting, we were naively expecting to be given a few small, concise deliverables to accomplish that would be explained with clear guidelines and we’d be on our way. After all, this is how assignments are approached in a classroom setting. In the real world, however, there are no rubrics to follow and we quickly realized that our expectations weren’t realistic. Our meeting was filled with countless exciting big ideas like the garden’s history and development, past projects, current events at the garden, relevant community stakeholders and more! It was up to us to figure out exactly how we could integrate ourselves into the existing world of Riley Park Community Garden and how we could add to it in a meaningful way.

So What: It’s these uncomfortable moments of uncertainty and ambiguity that truly challenge teams. However, this degree of freedom in our project allows us to be creative and cater to our individual strengths within the group. Valuable learning comes from feeling overwhelmed and working as a team to focus in on the most important details and create realistic and actionable goals. This is a skill that is invaluable outside of the classroom and gets better with practice.

Now What: We decided to employ a capacity building mindset to our project which can be defined as an approach that identifies community strengths and builds on them while valuing local community and expert knowledge and focusing on shared leadership, resources and learning (The University of Memphis, 2018). We demonstrate this in our project proposal which includes the context of Riley Park Community Garden, how our deliverables build on the work already being done and how we plan to collaborate as a team to maximize our learning and utilize the resources available to us

Community Gardens and Food Systems Issues:

Our meetings with our community partners Tamara and Joanne have opened our eyes to the far-reaching effects that community gardens have on a neighbourhood. Joanne was proud to share with us the diversity of the individuals that use the garden including new immigrants who are looking for community involvement. Tamara shared with us that native plants in the garden are used for re-wilding which is focused on reintroducing nature into city life and reminding us of what Vancouver looked like before it was a city. These native plants historically and currently serve important medicinal and nutritional purposes for indigenous people in the area. In Malik Yankini’s TEDx talk on Food, Race and Justice, he criticizes current intervention strategies in the food movement that involve well-funded white led projects that come into minority communities to plant gardens and teach nutrition education (TEDx Talks, 2014). While he acknowledges that these efforts are often well meaning, these incoming groups often assume that they know what is best for these communities which perpetrates concepts of white supremacy (TEDx Talks, 2014). It is our view that Riley Park Community Garden avoids this ineffectual strategy in combating food justice issues by offering a space where all people regardless of age, race or class can come together and be masters of their own learning and experiences by actively creating a beautiful garden in their own community while also reaping its benefits from fresh vegetables and fruit to physical activity and social connections.

Upcoming Objectives and Strategies:

	Objectives	Strategies to Achieve Upcoming Objectives
Week 9	Get more details on specifics of deliverables from our community partners Complete 6 lesson plans to be conducted in Riley Park Community Garden with a focus on place-based learning Group meeting to discuss division of work	Meeting with Tamara on Monday, March 5th at UBC Botanical Garden to determine deliverables Collect resources for lesson plan creation Collaborate on lesson template to be used by all group members Allocate division of work to each group member to complete based on strengths, previous experience and background knowledge
Week 10	Create map of Riley Park Community Garden Create calendar of themes Conduct a workshop at the garden (if possible) Initiate draft of infographic	Find effective online tool for creating visually appealing map that can be used by garden visitors Find online program to create visual calendar of themes Use community partner’s contacts to find local teacher willing to bring students to participate in workshop and follow 1 template to carry out a lesson In tutorial session, brainstorm ideas as a group on infographic development and layout

References (articles+videos):

The University of Memphis. (2018, January). Module 5: Capacity building for sustained change. Retrieved from U of M website http://www.memphis.edu/ess/module5/page3.php

TEDx Talks. (2014, December 6). Food, race and justice Malik Yankini TedxMuskegon [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=97&v=miukaKDL-Cs

References (images):

BISK Education. (2018). [Teamwork Image]. Retrieved February 28, 2018, from https://www.michiganstateuniversityonline.com/resources/leadership/baking-teamwork-into-the-company-culture/#.WpeCHKjwbIV

Past, Future, Present Signpost [Digital image]. (2017, June 27). Retrieved February 28, 2018, from http://presbyterian.ca/2017/06/27/new-legacy-fund-endowments-resource/past-future-present-signpost/