To be eligible for membership, an individual or group must be working on a public project, such as a community garden, public orchard, farm, mutual aid effort focused on food distribution or community land stewardship initiative, Richards said. City officials will vet projects to ensure they are publicly accessible and ask members for references, they said.
Richards said the center and its tool library are designed to be accessible to land stewards of all ages and abilities. The building, made from two old shipping containers, has ADA-compliant ramps and benches, and some of the tools are designed to be ergonomic or gripped easily.
Richards said they frequently attend events at community gardens and see “gaps” in gardeners’ access to equipment and ability to maintain land easily.
“Our land stewards are all volunteers,” Richards said. “This is really an equity issue.”
Sumi Narra, a core member of the Fernhill Food Forest in Germantown’s Fernhill Park, said the group struggles with storage space and has had tools stolen from the park. She said the group is excited to use the new tool library to supplement its own collection and access large pieces of equipment such as a brush hog mower attachment, which can quickly clear dense, invasive brush.
“As we’re doing more restoration work … it’s really helpful to have a tool such as that, as opposed to having it be hours and hours of teams working on it,” Narra said.
Young strawberries growing inside planter boxes at the new Agriculture Resource Center in Fairmount Park. (Kimberly Paynter/WHYY)
Carolina Torres, a land care organizer with Iglesias Gardens in Kensington, said they hope to borrow a wood chipper to create a mulch-like ground cover, and a sound system for block parties. They’re also interested in getting beans and flower bulbs from the center’s seed library.
“I’m curious if they’re going to have any bulbs or things that can make spaces look more beautiful,” Torres said.