Whitney Avenue Urban Farm
By Catrina Pickering 20th July 2011
Out of the 22 houses on Witney Avenue, Wilkinsburg (United States), 10 are abandoned. Chris Condello, a resident of the street who is also involved in Transition Pittsburgh is clearing the front yards, establishing gardens and involving the local children in the process. Here is an extract from Chris’ blog on the Transition Pittsburgh website:
“A big part of what goes on on our street involves children from the neighborhood. Before we moved on Whitney avenue the kids were terrors. They managed to chase many people off the street, and contributed to 90% of the litter. I decided to include them in the farm and they would come and go. They would help me when they were bored which is apparently pretty often. This year my 10 year old right hand man has been helping me since march on a regular basis. This is a kid who effectively chased a 50 year old out of his Victorian dream home. He can name just about every plant in the gardens.”
“Anyway in early June we opened the forgotten farm stand at the dead end of our street. I wanted to show the kids that there hard work can pay off monetarily and snuck a few math lessons in. They say ma’am, sir and thank you, now they say thank you all the time. I am so proud of these kids they now have a sense of pride and respect. Litter has gone down to virtually nothing.”
“We give most of what we don’t eat away to neighborhood residents… Some gets sold at the forgotten farm stand and the kids split the money they make between themselves. We are toting with the idea of doing a few farmers markets this year.”
Read Chris Condello’s blog.