Whitelock Community Farm festival

Last Sunday, the group of neighbors who live on Brookfield and converted the empty lot on the corner of Brookfield and Whitelock into a farm held its farm festival. The event was blessed with spectacular weather. There was face painting and apple bobbing for the neighborhood kids, pumpkin carving, spiced cider and several boxes of Dunkin Donuts. Justin brought out his three hens and wowed the kids. Many of them had not touched poultry of any sort. The turn out was very encouraging and I got to meet many of the neighbors. The new rabbi of Beth Am temple was there. He moved into the neighborhood when he took over the congregation and appears to be making a deliberate effort to reach out to the neighborhood. Then I met Justin and his wife Rebecca who recently moved here after completing school in Michigan. Justin teaches middle school in a public charter school and his wife is a social worker. Justin's dream is to begin a ministry to house homeless people in their house and to help them get on their feet. Rebecca's passion is bread baking and dreams about starting a bakery in Baltimore. She also has a passion for good food and hopes to introduce good food to the neighborhood. In erecting the greenhouse, she hopes that the farm can extend its growing season. The plan is to eventually produce enough vegetables to be able to sell them cheaply to residents. The group also hope to start a farmer's market in the lot across the street from the farm. It is amazing what these few families have done to this once empty weed and garbage filled lot.

Then I met Cynthia and her husband who lives across RHHP on Eutaw Place in the house that they bought from Brian and Cheryl Martin who once directed the YES program. Glynette, our neighbor from the north was there with her son, daughter in law and grand daughter. Glynette just returned from a couple of months in Florida taking care of some family business. I offered to let her have her own plot of land in the RHHP garden. She has a spigot right near the garden and she can run a hose to our garden. She thought that was a good idea and she was interested in having her own garden next to mine.