— Photo by Claudia Ferro

Highlights include Story Collecting, Fundraising Campaign, Archive Building, Events & Staff Expansion

 As it marks the start of its 30th anniversary celebration, exactly three decades after its groundbreaking in the fall of 1993, the Friends of the Community Growing Center in Somerville, MA announces a brand-new storytelling project, fundraising campaign, nascent YouTube channel and newly created Operations Manager position, all while planning public events to highlight the anniversary throughout the year. All anniversary events and related projects coincide with the Growing Center’s ongoing Strategic Planning process, begun in the summer of 2022 with the intention of looking back at its past 30 years in order to advance and inform its future. 

This October brings full circle the hard work, dedication and vision of the hundreds of people from the last 30 years who helped shape this community green space into what it is today, and in so doing, helped bring Somerville residents together from many walks of life. All events and projects created for the 30th Anniversary will take place between October 2023 and June 2024, and will be listed at www.thegrowingcenter.org/30th. Listed below are upcoming events and current projects.

30th Anniversary Kickoff Event: On Saturday, October 14, from 3:30 to 5:00 pm, the Friends of the Community Growing Center will open its gates to the public to launch the start of this special birthday year with its 30th Anniversary Kickoff event. All are invited to stop by the garden to enjoy a tour – some child-led – and explore children’s narratives and mapping of the Center; share a 30th Anniversary memory and/or hope for the space at a video station; explore archival photos and videos; and relax to music by Mystic Jazz Trio. This event is free for all. Rain Date October 15. Download the Event Flier

30-second Stories: As part of the celebrations, the Friends are gathering stories from across the past three decades, in addition to looking to the future. 30-second Stories is a project in which the public is invited to share memories of the Growing Center and/or ideas or dreams for the future to help inform the Strategic Planning process. Do you remember the first time you heard about or visited the Growing Center? Maybe you were a student, teacher, parent or neighbor stopping by on a walk. What does the Growing Center mean to you? How has it impacted your life? What do you want the Growing Center to be 30 years from now? The public is invited to visit bit.ly/gc-30 to access the Friends’ Flip page ~ enter the username “somerville” to get in ~ and record a short video message. Visitors can click on any of five different topic questions to record their video, and watch others’ videos. 

Share your Photos: In an effort to expand its archive, the Friends is requesting digital or scanned photos from events and work days at the garden from the past three decades. Folks can send them to 30th@thegrowingcenter.org; hard copies can be mailed to FCGC, PO Box 76, Somerville, MA 02143. (Preferably include date/event/names.) All are encouraged to pass along word of this opportunity to people who have known the Center in various ways throughout the years. 

Media Archive & YouTube Channel: One main component of the Growing Center’s long-term archives project is the documentation of all media coverage of the Center. This semester, an undergraduate intern from the Urban Ecological Gardening course at Lesley University will be helping to digitize that media coverage to make it accessible to the public online. Additionally, Somerville resident and volunteer Greg Hill is working with the FCGC Board to build a just-launched, brand-new YouTube channel for the Growing Center, which features some of its earliest video footage, including the inaugural episode of SCATV’s “On Our Streets” which features the Growing Center as a work-in-progress in spring 1994. Visit it at www.youtube.com/@SomervilleCommunityGrowingCent/. 

Strategic Planning Process: A team of volunteers and FCGC Board members are working on a long-term plan centered on the mission to be inclusive and accessible, and evolve to serve the changing landscape of Somerville residents. When complete, the Strategic Plan will support the Growing Center in four key ways to: (1) distill the organization’s vision to guide decision making and future collaborations; (2) increase the Center’s capabilities over time to grow impact, include diverse voices and broaden participation; (3) create a roadmap to achieve its goals highlighting key milestones; and (3) regularly communicate progress and updates with the community. More information on our Strategic Planning process can be viewed in this blog post.

Staff Expansion: The need for expanded staffing has emerged front and center out of the Strategic Planning process. The Growing Center operates almost entirely by volunteer hours, with two very minimally-funded but highly valuable positions: the Site Coordinator and the Volunteer Coordinator, each of which puts in about 8-10 hours per week. With the need for increased staff time, the FCGC Board is eliminating the Volunteer Coordinator job and replacing it with an Operations Manager position, which will encompass a 20-25 hour work week. This position will start in January 2024. More information about the position can be found at www.thegrowingcenter.org/operations-manager-search. 

30-30-30 Fundraising Campaign: With expansion and the long-term vision of serving as diverse a population as possible comes the need for funding. The Growing Center would be nowhere without the support of the surrounding Somerville community. The goal is simple: 30 Years. 30 Weeks. $30,000. This Campaign will run for 30 weeks – from the 30th Anniversary Kickoff Event on October 14 to May 11, 2024. Give if you can, but give back if you can’t by sharing this campaign widely to support the Growing Center, a first-of-its-kind green space, garden oasis and programming powerhouse where community grows. 

Spring 2024 Events: As part of the 30-30-30 Campaign, the FCGC Board is planning a 30th Anniversary garden party fundraiser in May for all donors, large and small, at a private home in Somerville. Details TBD. In June, we will host a more public “FUN-raising” party onsite at the Growing Center to mark the official start of our next 30 years. Stay tuned for more details on these two events!

As the Growing Center’s 30th season in operation draws to a close this month, it marks a major milestone for the first-of-its-kind public community green space. The public/private partnerships that formed to bring the Growing Center to life resulted in a unique collaboration that became a model for other municipalities. Over the years, the Growing Center has been recognized regionally and nationally, including a 1995 National Garden Association Youth Garden Award, and a community garden award from the Massachusetts Horticultural Society. It’s also been featured at a number of local, state, and national conferences – in turn inspiring the growth of other public garden spaces throughout the country.

For more information and to see a full listing of the Growing Center’s 2023 events, PLUS links to all event fliers (some in Spanish and Portuguese), go to www.thegrowingcenter.org/2023.