By Cassandra Day Via Greenwich Time
MIDDLETOWN — A social justice organization wants to turn a rarely used park in the North End into a farm run by youth and people of color.
Diana Martinez, program manager for Cultivating Justice and principal of Dee’s Crafty Bees, wants to rent the property for five years. The plot would be used for beekeeping and honey production, crop growing, poultry farming, arts and crafts and other purposes.
Cultivating Justice and its partners were looking for communities such as Miller and Bridge streets, “which are isolated from the rest of town, a distance away from any local food source or bodega, and where people are experiencing high need,” Martinez said during the March 12 Economic Development Commission meeting. “We found that here.”
Martinez is partnering with Lorenzo Jones, co-founder and co-executive director of the Hartford-based Katal Center for Equity, Health, and Justice on the project.
Dee’s Crafty Bees is a “queer, BIPOC woman-owned apiary invested in the future of our communities and our environment,” Martinez said in her proposal. Her goal is to cross-pollinate apiculture and fiber arts.
“Our passion is connecting upcoming generations to the natural world around them, teaching them about the importance of bees, supporting their interest in arts for creative and therapeutic purposes,” she said.
Cultivating Justice is a local, youth-led organization that identifies community needs, such as food security, land access, environmental justice, and civic engagement, on behalf of those underrepresented in Connecticut’s farming community, according to its website.
The partnership includes Chicks Ahoy Farm in Bloomfield, which works to “create a space where Black and brown people living in Connecticut who are seeking a relationship with the environment, renewable energy, animal husbandry, or other forms of farming can find the support and assistance they need to become farmers.”
Anything grown or cultivated will be offered to neighborhood residents at no charge, Martinez told commission members.
She foresees allowing businesses owned by people of color to access the land. “This space would serve as an incubation space for them to try out some of their ideas, to practice growing food,” Martinez added.
The land would be exempt from taxes, and the lease has a renewal option for another five years.
Cultivating Justice hosted a conference at Wesleyan University on Feb. 24 called “Growing Power 24.” Over 300 people attended the event, resident Krishna Winston said during the meeting’s public session.
She praised the organization’s efforts in promoting farmers of color, social justice, producing food for the community, and involving high school students.
Winston hosted a session on composting with worms during the conference to the delight of children, she told commissioners. “The spirit and level of expertise of the people who attended was truly impressive,” she said. “I felt as though the eagerness to expand knowledge of nature and become expert in various aspects of farming was really remarkable.”
In 2019, the North End Action Team proposed the project, which was approved but never implemented, EDC office Administrator Brian Gartner said at the meeting.
