Families pitch in at Newark Street

Susan Akman explains the process of creating viable compost. Photos by Meagan Pruitt
Susan Akman explains the process of creating viable compost. Photos by Meagan Pruitt

WASHINGTON — There’s still a two-year wait list, but 190 gardeners have become increasingly involved at Newark Street Community Garden and Park in this Northwest neighborhood near the National Cathedral.

Since its creation on National Food Day in 1975, the garden and park have expanded to four acres and grown to encompass all families in the District. The environment includes 200 plots to grow flowers or vegetables, and also a dog park, children’s playground and tennis courts.

Newark Street, the largest of the District’s 26 urban gardens, still dominates the four-acre park and offers what many members found in the first place — a respite and an opportunity to give back to the community.

Stephanie Cope, a sophomore at nearby American University, works as a nanny and visits the playground three times each day.

“It has a lot of different activities for different ages,” Cope said. “And it’s safe.”

The garden offers a free children’s program, in which kids are taught about the fundamentals and learn about different types of worms. They harvest and water plants in a separate area by the playground.  Susan Akman, coordinator of the program, doesn’t recall families being so involved in the gardens when her children were young, and said she is glad that kids are learning the importance of growing food and flowers alongside their parents.

The park, open to the public, gives families a spot to grill and picnic, too.

And even if a member is too elderly to perform certain tasks, others help them so they don’t lose their plot.

“We invite people in because we feel like we’re an education source,” Akman said. “It’s to be an inviting, pretty park.”

Elwood Gautier's plot of gardens are displayed neatly.
Elwood Gautier plants vegetables in orderly rows.

Elwood Gautier, 76, maintains a neat garden. He washes and packages his vegetables and plants and donates them to Miram’s Kitchen, Akman said. Other gardeners donate to So Others Can Eat (SOME) in the District. And those at St. Alban’s Senior Citizen Centre come to the gardens to collect produce as well.

And when times are difficult, some members of the community came to the gardens for refuge. After the 9/11 attacks, Akman recalled one woman coming here before she went anywhere else.

“The first place she came was the gardens because she found such solace in it,” Akman said.