Celebrating Phase One of the Grant Street Community Garden

On Saturday, October 17, the rain came down, the temperatures dropped, and our neighbors showed up anyway!

Despite the cold and rainy weather, we gathered at 805 Simmons Street to celebrate the completion of Phase One of the Grant Street Community Garden. It was a beautiful morning filled with laughter, food, gratitude, and a whole lot of joy as we celebrated what happens when neighbors, churches, volunteers, and community partners come together around a shared vision.

And we had even more to celebrate: an additional $16,000 in funding for the community garden! We received the exciting news just before our ribbon cutting began, reminding us that this work is continuing to grow.

How It All Began

Earlier this year, members of Monument of Faith Church's Social Justice & Outreach Team began gathering to read Let Justice Roll Down by Dr. John Perkins, founder of the Christian Community Development Association.

For several weeks, we read together, shared meals, built relationships, and explored what it means for a church to become deeply connected to the life and flourishing of its surrounding neighborhood.

Around that same time, the Grant Street Ladies, a group of longtime neighborhood residents and leaders, shared their desire to establish a community garden.

One of our church members, Jimaune, happened to have a passion for gardening and offered to help bring that vision to life. Alongside Sasha and a growing group of neighbors and volunteers, what began as a conversation slowly became a reality.

Over the following months, volunteers cleared overgrown land, prepared the property, installed raised garden beds, built a storage shed, assembled picnic tables, and created space for a Little Free Library and Resource Center.

It wasn't always easy. There were long workdays, unexpected challenges, rain delays, and plenty of moments when we had to figure things out as we went.

But little by little, the garden began to take shape.

Celebrating the People Who Made It Possible

Our ribbon cutting wasn't just about celebrating a garden. It was about celebrating the people who made it possible.

We want to give an especially heartfelt thank-you to Sasha and Jimaune, whose leadership, dedication, and countless hours of work helped carry this project across the finish line.

We're also deeply grateful for the Grant Street Ladies, our neighbors, members of Monument of Faith Church, and the many volunteers and community partners who showed up throughout the year to lend their hands, resources, encouragement, and expertise.

A special thank-you goes to Monument of Faith Church, a longstanding institution in our neighborhood, for making its land available and continuing to invest in the flourishing of the Grant Street Community.

We also want to thank the City of Durham for believing in this vision and awarding a $10,000 community garden grant, which helped make Phase One possible.

And just before our celebration began, we received word that the garden would be receiving another $16,000 in funding! What an incredible encouragement as we look toward the next phase of development.

We're grateful for every person and organization investing in the future of this neighborhood.

More Than a Garden

For us, this garden represents something much bigger than raised beds and fresh vegetables.

In a historic Black neighborhood like Grant Street, where generations of families have lived, worshiped, organized, and cared for one another, preserving spaces for community life matters.

We envision this garden becoming a place where elders can share their wisdom, children can learn how to grow food, families can gather around a table, and neighbors can build meaningful relationships with one another.

It's a place to grow food, but also a place to grow community.

As the Villages of Hayti redevelopment brings new residents and opportunities into the neighborhood, we hope this garden will serve as a welcoming gathering place where longtime and new neighbors can come together.

The garden is also one small but meaningful part of the Grant Street Community's larger 15-year neighborhood vision, which centers safety and connection, preservation and storytelling, and sustainable investment in our community.

We believe that the people who have stewarded this neighborhood for generations should remain at the center of shaping its future.

And sometimes that future begins with something as simple as planting a seed.

What's Next for the Garden?

While Phase One is complete, we're far from finished!

Our next phase will focus on continuing to improve the garden's infrastructure, including fencing, irrigation, and additional improvements that will help make the space sustainable and accessible for years to come.

With the additional $16,000 in funding, we're excited to begin planning the next steps alongside our neighborhood leaders and volunteers.

But perhaps even more importantly, we're looking forward to seeing the garden come alive with people.

We want neighbors to help plant, grow, harvest, gather, learn, and enjoy the space together. Our hope is that this becomes a garden that belongs to the community in every sense of the word.

How You Can Get Involved

This garden is for our neighbors, and we'd love for you to be part of what comes next!

Whether you've been gardening your whole life or have never planted a seed, there's a place for you here.

You can get involved by volunteering for upcoming garden workdays, helping plant and maintain garden beds, donating supplies and resources, sharing your gardening knowledge, or simply stopping by to get to know your neighbors.

We especially want to encourage residents of Grant Street and the surrounding Hayti neighborhood, along with members of Monument of Faith Church, to help shape what this space becomes.

You can visit the garden at 805 Simmons Street in Durham, North Carolina, and connect with Grant Street Community or BLK South to learn about upcoming volunteer opportunities.

As our garden leaders take some well-deserved rest after months of hard work, we'll be sharing more opportunities to get involved in the coming weeks.

We're Just Getting Started

There's something powerful about watching a community come together to transform an overlooked piece of land into a place of beauty, nourishment, and belonging.

What we celebrated on October 17 wasn't simply the completion of a project. It was the beginning of something we hope will serve our neighborhood for generations.

To everyone who braved the rain, worked in the dirt, donated resources, offered encouragement, and believed in what this garden could become: thank you.

And a special thank-you to our friend David Tran for beautifully capturing the celebration through photography.

We look forward to seeing what grows from here.

Here's to growing food, growing relationships, and growing a stronger Grant Street Community together. 🌱

With gratitude,

Grant Street Community