The Peralta Community College District agreed to a three-year license<\/a> with the land trust for them to operate and maintain the Laney College garden for hands-on learning, community building, and food production, under specific terms such as \u201cmaintaining the fence, keeping the area clean, [\u2026] and [gardeners] carry[ing] insurance\u201d at its Nov. 18 board of trustees meeting<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n This agreement connects the garden\u2019s international communities and under-used land in Oakland.\u00a0<\/p>\n The land trust is set to offer organizational support \u201cto support the gardeners within the partnership with Laney,\u201d according to Executive Director Steve King.\u00a0<\/p>\n King told The Citizen that the land trust hopes for a longer partnership with the college,\u201cto rebuild the entire fence at the garden in partnership with Laney\u2019s carpentry and Japanese joinery students.\u201d<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t <\/a><\/p>\n \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tA gate that reads “you are loved” at the Laney Community Garden at Laney College in Oakland, CA. on Oct. 1, 2025.\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n The roots of the garden<\/p>\n The Laney community garden was built between the estuary and the Laney Bistro in 2008. Initially, the garden was built for culinary students to grow and harvest their own produce. Gradually, it changed throughout the years, later serving as a dual space; half for students with the Mindful Garden Collective<\/a>, and the other half for a sprawling immigrant community.<\/p>\n In 2012, Laney College donated a plot of its garden to the International<\/a> Rescue Committee\u2019s (IRC) New Roots<\/a> food and agricultural project, calling it the \u201cLaney Community Partnership Garden.\u201d The International Rescue Committee<\/a> was formed in 1933, initially composed of a group of humanitarians including Albert Einstein, to focus support for refugees, immigrants, and other people escaping humanitarian crises.<\/p>\n The New Roots Project has used the entire garden space since the Mindful Garden Collective became defunct in 2015.<\/p>\n The Oakland based New Roots Project engaged \u201crefugees, immigrants and their communities in urban agriculture, food markets, youth programs, community food orientation, and emergency food distribution.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Gardener Man Mapchan, from Bhutan, told The Citizen, \u201cLaney College gave us the land, the New Roots built the fence. Working in the garden is so entertaining.\u201d He and his wife, Anu Mapchan, frequently visit the garden.<\/p>\n According to Zack Reidman, former program coordinator, The New Roots project lost its funding during the COVID-19 pandemic.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is partly why Laney College was interested in ensuring that the garden continues to thrive [and] to update the land use agreement between [Laney and Oakland Community Land Trust].\u201d Reidman said.<\/p>\n New growth<\/p>\n Becky Opsata, Interim President at Laney College and creator of the agreement with the land trust said that, prior to the agreement with Oakland Community Land Trust, \u201c[Laney] didn\u2019t have anything on paper, no agreement between the gardeners and Laney College.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n According to Opsata, the gardeners kept returning to the garden after the New Roots project ended.\u00a0<\/p>\n Lila Dewan, a Nepali gardener, told The Citizen that there are nine Nepali families that farm on one side of the garden, while Cambodian families work on the other side.\u00a0<\/p>\n For Anu Mapchan, the garden carries deeper meaning as she used to visit the garden with her late mother. Now, the garden serves as a place for meditation and remembrance.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s so nice here,\u201d Anu Mapchan said, \u201cwhen I am working, I forget everything. It\u2019s a good relaxing place, it\u2019s [a] kind of meditation.\u201d<\/p>\n Anu Mapchan said her mother died last year. She said that the garden helps her remember all of their \u201cgood time[s] together.\u201d<\/p>\n Following the approval of the use of land, the Laney garden is a place for immigrants and the Peralta community to continue to grow together.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Oakland \u2013 The garden at Laney College sits along the estuary, overflowing with edible crops. The garden is…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":279691,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[143,145,144],"class_list":["post-279690","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-oakland","tag-oakland","tag-oakland-headlines","tag-oakland-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/279690","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=279690"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/279690\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/279691"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=279690"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=279690"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=279690"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/IMG_7447-900x1200.jpg\")
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