In South Central Los Angeles, there stands a place of great beauty: one of the largest community-tended gardens in the world. The garden, located at 41st and Alameda, has been tended to and cared for by the people of the South Central Los Angeles community since 1992. However, the garden’s longevity has recently been threatened by potential sale of the land on which it resides.
The land on which this garden sits is zoned for commercial use and has recently been offered up for sale to Wal-Mart for use as a distribution center. The property has been embroiled in a bitter land dispute between the farmers and the land owner and the land owner is pressing to sell the land to Wal-Mart which, inevitably, will turn South Central Los Angeles into a distribution hub for Wal-Mart. However, there is a way to protect and preserve the garden and keep it open to the residents: to purchase the land.
As of this email, $11,000,000.00+ has been raised, $5M of that in the last week, to purchase the land and keep the garden from being wrestled away by Wal-Mart and their developers. The fundraising has been spearheaded by Julia Butterfly, a well-known environmental activist, and is supported by an impressive list of public donors including Darryl Hannah, Ben Harper, Leonardo DiCaprio, Tom Morello, and Ron Kovic. They are only around $5M short of their goal of $16M, an amount that the developer has agreed to accept for sale of the land.
If you or anyone you know would be willing to make a donation to preserve this precious natural resource of the South Central Los Angeles community, please have them go to the website or contact me via email discuss matching contributions of any amount. The company I work for, Sarathan Records, has made a substantial donation towards the purchase price of the land. If you can help, please do.
If you’d like more information on the South Central Farmers Feeding Families, the website is at http://www.southcentralfarmers.org
