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HATTIE CARTHAN COMMUNITY FARMERS MARKETGrowing fresh food & healthy people in Central Brooklyn

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2011 Market Season: Saturdays 9am - 3pm July - NovNew After Church Farmers' Market at the Herban Farm (49 Van Buren) Sundays 1pm - 6pm July - NovFor Upcoming Events click here.We are still accepting donations to support our small scale urban agriculture project. Donate Today.

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The Hattie Carthan Community Farmers Market

The Hattie Carthan Community Farmers Market is a volunteer based and led community revitalization project in Central Brooklyn NYC . The community farmers market is located on Clifton Place at Marcy Avenue directly behind the Hattie Carthan Community Garden. The market runs Saturdays 9am - 3pm from July - November increasing fresh food access to low-income community residents in a neighborhood classified as a "Fresh Food Desert."

The community revitalization project led by Yonnette Fleming, V.P. of the Hattie Carthan Community Garden and founder of the market began in March 2009 when Fleming received permission from the NYC Dept of Parks and Recreation to clear, design and utilize the lot which was used as a thriving dumping ground for over twenty years as a community farmers market. Fleming immediately mobilized thirteen Hattie Carthan Garden members to vision together and create the market of their dreams.

Before abandoned lot revitalization Project
After abandoned lot revitalization project

2011HCCMreport.pdf

To date over fifteen thousand pounds of fresh, local food has been distributed to community residents through the Hattie Carthan Farmers' Markets. Those residents were also able to attend dozens of healthy eating and food justice workshops in the marketplace where they delved into preparation methods, eating for health disparities, the seasonality of foods and understanding community health and food justice. The market is a multigenerational project which engages neighborhood youths in urban agriculture, communication basics and entrepreneurship, provides programming for "tiny tots," school age children, adults and seniors. To learn more about programs at the market please CLICK HERE.

The Hattie Carthan Community Garden , located at Lafayette and Marcy Avenue, was formed in 1991 as a place where humans can expand their knowledge of plants and grow fresh food in Brooklyn. The garden has been a public space that is multigenerational and multicultural for over two decades in Bed Stuy, Brooklyn. The garden is named after a prominent Brooklyn environmentalist who was instrumental in planting over 1,500 trees in Brooklyn. In the mid-90s the garden received preserved landmark status as a result of the community's organizing efforts and became an Operation Greenthumb Parks & Recreation site. The Hattie Carthan Garden is an important public space with its own legacy and history. Within the last decade, the Hattie Carthan Community Garden has reinvented itself by combining the old fashioned community gardening approach with urban agriculture. The garden is equipped with a recently built children's learning garden, mushroom patches, new chicken coops, a three bin composting system and vermicomposting system. Our new hoop-houses allows gardeners to extend the growing season, grow food without chemicals, increase yield and educates children about growing food from seed. Livestock raised on the farm provides eggs to community residents, income for the farm as well as manure for the plants. Using manure and compost eliminates our dependence on chemical/synthetic fertilizers. Our advocacy and food justice programs help educate and empower youths and others working within the food system. Please stay tuned for the launch of our online food education site which encourages community health through seasonal and holistic approaches to food as opposed to nutritionism.There are currently 60 members on the books, 45 individual plots, a large herb garden, a host of flower beds and islands, and fruit trees (fig, peach, apple, plum, sour cherry and apricot). Two thirds of the garden is dedicated to food production.

Through the adoption and rehabilitation of two abandoned land parcels and creation of two outdoor farmers' markets, the garden has exponentially increased tbe amount of food it grows and is able to distribute in the community. In addition to two farmers' markets, community residents can participate in the Mixed Basket Program and receive fresh local produce all season at reasonable prices. Through combinining increased access to local food with education the garden, farm and market is able to create resilience to the issue of food insecurity. Our programs include nutrition awareness and food education workshops, advocacy and food justice workshops, sustainable agriculture workshops, intergenerational community councils, two food festivals and cooking demonstrations with youth and senior populations. The garden has made several strategic moves to advance food justice in Central Brooklyn. To learn more about food justice initiatives please click here .

To learn more about the garden's legacy, Central Brooklyn icon Hattie Carthan, and our rules of engagement or to see a site map and read about our bi-laws CLICK HERE.

About Us

2011HCCMreport.pdf

HATTIE CARTHAN COMMUNITY MARKET MISSION:

The Hattie Carthan Community Market seeks to enhance the quality of life in the Bedford Stuyvesant Central Brooklyn area by:

Providing a quality market and entrepreneurial opportunities for a variety of locally grown and value added farm products and commodities directly to the customer.

Preserving Brooklyn's agricultural heritage.

Providing opportunities for farmers and people from the community to deal directly with each other rather than through third parties and thereby get to know and learn from one another.

Providing a quality market which provides fresh locally grown food to community residents.

Providing a community space that fosters intergenerational gatherings, healthy food education, food and farm justice activities and entrepreneurship.

The Hattie Carthan Community Farmers Market is a volunteer based and led community revitalization project in Central Brooklyn NYC . Within the last six years alone, our garden has expanded its food security/environmental justice programming in order to advance community resilience to the issues of food insecurity and health disparities evident in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood by adding nutrition awareness and food security workshops, wellbeing workshops, intergenerational community councils, an international food and film festival which attracted well over three hundred community residents last year and cooking demonstrations with youth and senior populations.

In 2007, garden members came together to construct a professional hoophouse, which has increased our capacity to grow more fresh food and extend the growing season. The garden has recently reclaimed an abandoned land parcel which was used to dump toxic materials for over twenty years. Our new farmers market is located in that reclaimed lot.

If you are interested in supporting this Brooklyn based community revitalization project and want to see us continue to build capacity in this community space donate here: http://www.firstgiving.com/hattiecarthanmarket

All donations are tax deductible.

2010Farmer Recruitment Letter.pdf

2010marketregulations.pdf

2010Nonprofit Recruitment Letter and app.pdf

Background:

Across the United and States, rates of obesity and diabetes are increasing dramatically, particularly within lower-income, African-American, and Latino communities. In New York City neighborhoods like Bedford Stuyvesant in Central Brooklyn, where a third of residents live in poverty, more than 12% of adults have diabetes, compared to 8% nationwide. In these settings, a growing body of research points to the intersection between low rates of consumption of healthy foods such as fruits, vegetables and whole grains and limited access to healthy choices as driving disease rates. Less than 8% of the primarily African-American and Latino residents in these communities report eating the recommended five or more servings of fruits or vegetables per day; twenty percent report eating none at all. The Hattie Carthan Community Market is a community solution to the issue of poor nutrition and food insecurity in our community.

Benefits:

Starting a farmers market in our neighborhood brings many benefits to farmers and community members. A farmers market is a direct opportunity to meet the people who grow your food. It also means that the quality of food and farm products is higher since they are grown locally. Farmers markets are social gathering places. We envision a thriving marketplace where food producers can share value added products grown on their gardens or farms, a place where food justice advocates inform residents about local food issues, a place where local community chefs host cooking demonstrations and a host of healthy eating programming. A place where our children and elders can conversate around food. A place where culturally appropriate foods are considered vital to community nutrition. A place that remembers the agricultural heritage of Bedford Stuyvesant; that contributes to the cultural, social and economic vitality of Brooklyn.

Garden

Garden officers

Emmanuel Kolajo President

Yonnette Fleming Vice President

Bettina White

Treasurer

Stefanie Siegel

Secretary

Hattie Carthan Community Garden Mission:

To preserve the agricultural heritage of Brooklyn.

To serve as an intergenerational space for reflection, inspiration, education, and training for those who visit.

To preserve the biodiversity of life, whose continuing decline threatens the health of our agricultural and natural ecosystems.

To provide an outdoor learning classroom where children and adults become exposed to a working garden.

To make a connection between the complexity of the natural world and our role as nature's caretakers.

To supply fresh food and value added products to our garden members and our community farmers market.

Hattie Carthan Community Garden and La Cima: Experiential and Service Learning

The Hattie Carthan community garden is in its second year of partnership with La Cima to develop an interdisciplinary program that promotes science, social studies, and art through community engagement. The garden has embarked on cultivating sustainability and health from the primary years through the creation of a learning children's garden. The children's garden is fully equipped with a vermi-composting system, a childrens composter, mushroom patches,an old fashioned water pump and raised garden beds. We closely tie our garden-based learning with work being done by classroom teachers in school and relevant, ongoing community garden projects. Our garden curriculum will include topics such as trees, plants, animals, insects, impact of humans on the environment, recycling, neighborhood and community.

We believe that experiential learning is an important component of developing the whole child. Students must be provided with multiple

opportunities to make cross-disciplinary connections outside of the context of the traditional learning environment. It is in the real world

that we live and apply the content and critical thinking skills that we practice in school. Through our collaboration with the Hattie Carthan

Garden we fundamentally enhance the education of our students, while at the same time develop the next generation of community

activists. Together, we will help grow a network of people that are passionate and committed to the environment, sustainable living, and

community activism.

Partnership

The Garden provides the expertise of Yonnette Fleming, an experienced urban farmer and community educator to work with our scholars on a weekly basis. La cima provides the garden with opportunities to: expand their outreach in the community, teach neighborhood school children, develop new innovative curricula. Together,

we are pioneering a model school and urban farming program, which is addressing the needs of our school community and beyond. Bed-Stuy is

currently classified by the federal government as a fresh food desert. By addressing the quality of the healthy foods available, teaching our

scholars about where food comes from, and increasing the accessibility of fresh food to our scholars, we are significantly impacting them and

their families. In the long run, we are 1) increasing their life expectancy 2) reducing obesity in a neighborhood where childhood obesity is

prevalent 3) reducing heart disease 4) reducing diabetes 5) positively affecting the environment and hopefully changing the way we eat and live.

Service Center

Each week, we will have an opportunity to give back to the garden community, and to do any work and chores that are necessary to

keep the garden functioning properly. Mr. Kolajo, President and Ms. Yonnette Fleming, VP of the gardens board will be our point

people for indicating the types of service that are necessary in the garden.Types of service that we will do includes: Weeding, Mulching,

urning compost, Raking, Other projects, as needed. We expect our partnership to grow in the coming years. The youths are our future!

Commit to helping them grow.

Tribeca Teaches 2010 Food Documentary

Tribeca Teaches: Films in Motion is a program developed by the Tribeca Film Institute to bring the art of filmmaking into the classroom and enrich the educational experiences of students at schools in outlying communities. Since its launch in 2007, Tribeca Teaches has served hundreds of students through in-school and after-school, hands-on youth media programming. For 2010, the Tribeca Teaches participants put together Project Perception, several short documentaries based on issues important the youth filmmakers. A group of Brooklyn students created a documentary look at food access in their communities and

grassroots work around food. The youth visited Hattie Carthan to explore, film, and interview

Yonnette Fleming about the work she is doing at the Hattie Carthan Garden and Market to

increase food access in Bed-Stuy. The finished documentary was premiered at the Tribeca Film

Festival April 29, 2010.

Intergenerational Workshops and Cooking Demonstrations

Young adults and seniors also have the opportunity to learn in the garden during numerous Saturday gardening workshops, or by joining in for garden tours, cooking demonstrations, food and film festivals and activities. These hands-on courses cover all the basics of gardening and are taught by a knowledgeable master gardener. Each seasonal course provides participants with a practical understanding of how to tend to a beautiful and productive garden. In addition to gardening, we offer interactive demonstrations in the art of cooking fresh from the garden.

Organic Music/Community Percussion and Movement Circle

The food you eat is mostly factory farmed - grown in chemicals manufactured in a chemical works, but your music doesn't have to be '

factory farmed too. This free percussion and movement circle happens the last Sunday of each month during the warm season.

Participants learn about organic music and community building through rhythmic entrainment. Programs which teach instrument making

from garden materials and explore rhythmic entrainment and healing through toning can be offered by a teaching artist. Please contact us

with your group needs. Join us as we ground ourselves in the heart beat and spend an evening jamming to west African and Caribbean

rhythms. Drum and Dance til the cows come home! For more information please visit the Garden website and click on "Programs".

Nurture Craft in the Garden

Learn about the forms and shapes of flowers, leaves, plants, rocks and how to incorporate them into your hand made designs, jewelry, floral arrangements, wreaths, potpourris etc. Create valuable products from your garden which can make gardening sustainable. Learn the basics of aromatherapy and how to make safe botanical products. Nurture yourself through crafting. Craft workshops can be offered to your group by a teaching artist. Please contact us with your group needs.

Nature Writing/Literacy Program

A writing course exploring the language that nature uses to speak to us. Participants learn the ins and outs of effective nature writing and how to use visual words that engage our senses. Vocabulary is increased based on the observation of nature. Group workshops can be offered to your group by a teaching nature artist. Please contact us with your group needs.

Group Tours and Seasonal Celebrations.

If your group is visiting our historic community garden or community farmers market, we gladly welcome you. We host garden tours, and invite you to help us with seasonal tasks such as planting, weeding, making compost, and harvesting. Specific Instructional programs can also be catered to your group's needs for a fee. Wedding photo sessions, graduations and other family celebrations can be arranged with prior approval of a garden officer. We simply ask that you leave our garden in the same condition you found it and adhere to our bi-laws! The garden was a host site for the U.N CSD Brooklyn farm tour in 2008 & 2009.

Intentional Dialog/Conflict Resolution/Community Council

Community council is a traditional method of connecting and exploring common ground. This method has been used by indigenous societies for centuries and is particularly suitable for land dispute resolution issues and to remove cultural barriers within communities. In a community council people are encouraged to speak freely in a circle. The symbolism of the circle establishes no dominance by any party and has no beginning or end. This is a different kind of meeting than most modern people are used to. The focus is on dialogue -- on exploring and learning together -- not on getting things done or completing an agenda. It is possible, with expert facilitation and savvy participation, to do both linear and circular modes in one meeting. But "exploration" and "getting somewhere" are very different energies. The council container is focused on exploring and learning from each other.

Over the last seven years, the garden has hosted intentional dialogue as a way of engaging cultural tolerance, as a way of addressing neighbourhood issues such as food insecurity, male violence and taking action. Sitting in a circle helps us to fully see each other as peers sharing meaning, creativity, and a common center. The most basic unit of co-intelligent social life is people sitting in a circle listening deeply and speaking from the heart. Council work is profoundly important for the survival of our culture.

The Built Environment - Community led building projects in the Garden

There is growing recognition that the built environment -- the man-made physical structures and infrastructure of communities -- has an impact on our health. There are several indicators that altering elements of the built environment can improve health behaviors and outcomes. Because low-income communities are more likely to be sites of hazards and less likely to be conducive to physical activity and healthy eating, communities need to begin to research and create neighbourhood places with the health of community members at the fore. The ultimate goal in hosting community led building projects is knowledgeable community participation. This means creating environments that work for adults and children; buildings and spaces that are healthy and aesthetically pleasing; streetscapes and landscapes that reach to the future while celebrating our past.

2006 - Restore dilapidated statue and create flower garden Restore and refinish sculpture, create flower garden to attract beneficial pollinators.

Project reconstruction: Emmanuel Kolajo & Earl Fogle * Flower Garden Design: Yonnette Fleming

2007 - Designed & constructed a hoophouse that extends our growing season and teaches our children to start plants from seed.

Hoophouse Project Director: Yonnette Fleming * Expert Consultant: John Ameroso * Construction specialists: Emmanuel Kolajo & Earl Fogle

2009 - Transformed debris filled lot into educational childrens garden. This garden was designed by: Yonnette Fleming, La Cima Charter School teachers, parents and elementary school children.

Project Director & Designer: Yonnette Fleming

Construction helpers: Emannuel Kolajo & Earl Fogle.

- Redesigned herb garden, added solar inputs, a green fence & arbor.

- Worked with community volunteer groups to reclaim, clear, level and design community farmers market from abandoned lot, created live plant installation with Yoruba market sculptures and public sitting area in market.

Project Director : Yonnette Fleming

Market Beds Designed by: Emmanuel Kolajo and Luscious McDaniel.

To learn more about Hattie Carthan (our neighborhood icon) the garden's' legacy, rules of engagement, how to get involved in garden programs or how you can meaningfully contribute to the work that our organization is doing in Central Brooklyn to promote food/environmental justice, CLICK HERE

Farmers Market

Hattie Carthan Community Market Mission:

The Hattie Carthan Community Market seeks to enhance the quality of life in the Bedford Stuyvesant Central Brooklyn area by:

Providing a quality market and entrepreneurial opportunities for a variety of locally grown and value added farm products and commodities directly to the customer.

Preserving Brooklyns agricultural heritage

Providing opportunities for farmers and people from outside communities to deal directly with each other rather than through third parties and thereby get to know and learn from one another.

Creating a quality market which provides fresh locally grown food to community residents.

Providing a community space that fosters intergenerational gatherings, healthy food education food and farm justice activities and entrepreneurship.

Our market programs sustain community health, good nutrition, energy, human dignity, and the opportunity for individuals to meet their full potential.

Programs

Youth Corps

Playstreets

Bread Baking

Disparity Councils

Drumming up Health

Tiny Tots

Programs

Market Programs

Urban Agriculture Youth Corps :

At the Hattie Carthan Community Market young people develop new green job skills in the areas of gardening, value added ventures, seasonal nutrition, food education, livestock management, composting, cultural awareness, environmental stewardship and healthy living. The youths positively engage with their community through the operation of a socially responsible urban farming enterprise. Youth participants explore food systems and issues of food justice, and build community organizing/activism and other leadership skills.

Senior Produce Drop-off Program:

This program is designed specifically for seniors who wish to receive fresh food delivery on market purchases above $20 and home-bound seniors. Homebound seniors sign up through community outreach, or download a Senior Produce Delivery Form. Produce orders must be placed by Tuesday of each week with the market operations coordinator (contact 212-561-7327) who fills the order and delegates the delivery run to a youth intern or market volunteer. Youth Interns and volunteers develop working relationships with seniors and serve them throughout the market season.

Fresh Food on Wheels :

Qualifying seniors sign up for a season of farm-fresh, local produce. Seniors receive a Reduced Price Senior Mixed Market Basket weekly that contains about 8 different varieties of fruits and vegetables. Seniors have the option to order a basket for one or a larger size for couples and/or families. The deeply discounted weekly cost of a Single Senior Mixed Market Basket is $7 and a Large Senior Mixed Market Basket is $15. The Fresh Food on Wheels Program creates an alternative to CSA programs and does not require a large upfront payment for the season. Instead participants make a payment at the beginning of each month of the season July - November with Cash or EBT(food stamps). Baskets are delivered weekly by Market youths and volunteers. Fresh Food on Wheels is an affordable option that increases access to fresh produce for less mobile, or homebound seniors, and creates the opportunity for a weekly visit building relationships between market youths and neighborhood seniors.

Mixed Produce Basket :

Participants sign up for a Single Mixed Basket or a Family Mixed Basket for the season. Each basket has a seasonal combination of different fruits and vegetables and the option to add herbs and eggs. All of the produce in the Mixed Produce Basket comes from within 150 miles of Bed-Stuy. Many of the fruits and vegetables are grown at the Hattie Carthan Community Garden and Hattie Carthan Herban Farm by our resident farmer. All of the local eggs come from the 2 Hattie Carthan Community Garden chicken coops. Baskets are picked up weekly at the Market on Saturday 10am-12pm. The Mixed Produce Basket is an alternative to traditional CSA programs. There are no large upfront seasonal costs. Participants make monthly payments of $52 for the Single Mixed Basket ($60 with herbs and eggs) or $84 for the Family Mixed Basket ($100 with herbs and eggs) with Cash, EBT, WIC/Senior FMNP. When compared to average CSA costs, The Hattie Carthan Mixed Produce Basket program saves its participants over $100 seasonally. Go to our Mixed Basket page for more information.

Veggie Bundles Juicing Program:

Our human bodies have been created to have a marvelous self-healing capability. Fresh fruits and vegetables are some of the most healing foods given us for that healing purpose, qualities that human cannot imitate through drugs. Juicing makes it easy for our cells to assimilate these high quality nutrients to feed your cells. Juices are highly detoxifying and cleansing. They help repair damages to your cells, heal and nourish. Each week get valuable from our market veggie educator. Veggie bundles are sold based on healthy juicing recipes of community food educators. The veggies are then juiced by trained volunteers who operate and maintain the juicing machines in the market.

Pick your own Produce Program:

Youth Corps

Hattie Carthan Urban Agriculture Youth Corps

Playstreets

Playstreets

Bread Baking

Community Gains through Baking with Healthy Grains

Disparity Councils

Disparity Councils in the Market

Drumming up Health

Drumming up Health Drum and Dance in the marketplace

Tiny Tots

Tiny Tots Summer Gardening Program

Gallery

Livestock

Resources

Annual Chicken Coopla

Collaborations

Al Vann - 36th District Councilman (Youth & Agriculture cmtees)

DOHMH (EBT Operator, Health Bucks)

William and Mary Greve Foundation

Con Edison (Youth,green initiatives)

Citizens Committee for NYC (Livestock Educational Festival, 2011 Playstreets, Built Environment Projects)

Farmers Market Federation (EBT Machine)

NYRP

Green Guerillas (Seeds, Plant Starts, Summer Youth Tiller Program, Market Operations Office Space)

WHYHunger (formerly World Hunger Year) - 2009 Harry Chapin Self-Sufficiency Award

Partnership for Parks (Capacity Building)

Just Food (Workshops)

Laura Vogler Foundation (Youth)

Jessie Smith Noyes Foundation (Hattie Carthan Herban Farm)

Brooklyn Community Foundation (Food Justice Training)

Baileys cafe - Fiscal sponsors

Green Guerillas - Fiscal sponsors

Greenthumb NYC

Just Food

GrowNYC

BBG - Greenbridge composting Program

Cornell Extension

DOHMH

MTEC - Magnolia Tree & Earth Center

Partnerships for Parks NYC

St Johns bread & Life

Brooklyn Rescue Mission

East New York farms

USDA Dept of Agriculture & Markets

Brooklyn Food Coalition

Brooklyn Health Disparities Center

NYC Beekeeping

Brooklyn Food and Fitness Task force

Elected officials and community board representatives who are interested in supporting community revitalization in Bedford Stuyvesant Brooklyn.

Community gardeners who are interested in selling locally grown foods and ethnic crops within a 3 mile radius of the Hattie Carthan Community Garden.

Food activists who are ready to organize around community food issues.

Local social service providers who can help conduct Food Stamp outreach in the market.

Economic and environmental justice advocates .

Food pantries staff who are interested in receiving left over fresh produce from the market.

Ethnic organizations who are interested in preserving Brooklyns agricultural heritage.

Local farmers who are willing to drop off produce to our Central Brooklyn market.

Backyard and rooftop gardeners who can agree to a site inspection of their garden space.

High school students who want to learn more about growing and distributing food.

Herbalists, floral gardeners and master gardeners who are familiar with intensive growing for market.

Volunteers who wish to work in the market.

Local restaurants and bodegas who are interested in purchasing fresh food.

Media partners, Food writers & food artists.

Professional fundraisers.

Grant writers.

Community artists.

Craft vendors.

Holistic practitioners.

Fitness specialists.

Baileys cafe - Fiscal sponsors

Green Guerillas - Fiscal sponsors

Contact us

Produce

Produce

Garden Gallery

In the News

Press Releases

In the News

Events

Upcoming Events

Recent Events

Comments

Impact

Hattie Carthan community Garden/Hattie Carthan Herb Farm/Markets Impact Timeline Report 2009-2011

Advocacy

Advocacy

History

Our History: Over two decades of advocacy efforts in Central Brooklyn

Food Justice

Food Justice

Community Garden

Community Garden Initiatives

Feminine empowerment

Feminine Empowerment

Training

Basic Advocacy Training for community Residents and Youth

Herban Farm Fresh Food on Wheels Mixed Basket Market Gallery Food Justice