We spoke with Luz “Lucy” Moreno-Casanova, the Director of the YMCA Community Gardens Project. With 12 locations throughout Yonkers, the Community Gardens are a collection of public spaces for residents of Yonkers and its neighboring cities to grow and learn by beautifying the urban landscape and growing organic food.
Education, Beautification, and Healthy Living
The Community Gardens offer much more than cultivating green spaces in Yonkers. They also provide community residents and community members with a positive place to be which is further helped with cultural activities that can bring great feelings of pride to many residents. The work of the YMCA has also encouraged residents to change their eating habits by getting involved with the garden and participating in several of their ongoing activities. When families can grow their own organic fruits, vegetables, and herbs, buying other household items is easier.
Lucy and her team often assist members with maintaining their planting boxes, offering summer camps, and collaborating with the city’s public services department to provide weekly community cleanups. Gardening and environmental education are also offered to students at two Yonkers public schools–students harvested vegetables from their gardens and created organic salads using tomatoes, green beans, and lettuce. Likewise, over 1,000 teens in Yonkers found jobs and volunteer experience in the gardens.
The Three Rs
Participants in the Community Gardens are taught about the three “R”s, reduce, reuse, and recycle. Aside from traditional recycling, this also includes composting and exchanging clothes and other items instead of discarding them in the trash. Yonkers residents are invited to participate in the Healthy Neighborhoods Clean Ups, which have been taking place for 30 years, starting from April –August: this is a collaboration with the Department of Public Works from the City of Yonkers.
The environmental club has been involved with the Marshland Project with the Beczak Environmental Education Center at 35 Alexander Street. By helping residents and students understand that green spaces are a necessary part of our living environment, the Community Gardens project creates opportunities for residents to live healthier, longer lives. In addition, gardens provide opportunities for insects, bugs, birds, and other living things to enjoy their natural habitats.
Community Centers Without Walls
The work doesn’t just end at the gardens; the YMCA is often busy collaborating with different community and government groups and organizations. Some of the services offered to their clients include phone calls and referral services to other agencies for help with food stamps, food pantries, obtaining health insurance, referrals for schools, and summer and winter job opportunities.
The YMCA also reaches out to other organizations to create workshops, nutritional presentations, and new collaborative ventures. Several of the valuable services offered by the YMCA Community Gardens to the community it serves are, but not limited to, educational programs about Growing Healthy Organic foods, teaching children, teens, and adults to care for and be stewards to already existing green spaces, providing environmental and cultural education, and providing safe public spaces for the community to gather learn and grow together at, what Lucy and the YMCA call, “community centers without walls.”
Get Involved
Anyone who would like to get involved with the YMCA Communities Gardens project please contact Lucy at lucym@yoymca.org or 914 426 6668 (because Luz is on various sites most of the time, she will reply faster to a text.)
Call the Yonkers YMCA AT 914 963 0183 EXT. 23 and leave a message with the receptionist.
Residents seeking to get involved with the project need to provide several hours of community services.
