This year we commenced a major project at BCHS, a shelter that serves formerly unhoused individuals and families in Brooklyn (www.bchands.org). Since 2020, we have provided the residents of this shelter, whose ages range from newborns to grandparents, with workshops in which they get to explore with the materials and ideas of art and music. Over that period, residents and staff expressed to us their dismay with the state of the shelter’s garden beds, which had fallen into disarray. MAPS, among the numerous other skills in our tool belt, has expertise in plant propagation and garden design, so we offered our services.

Using collage and visual art as a canvas for thinking about plant types and combinations thereof, we guided the shelter residents in plant selection, design and propagation. In late winter, residents sowed seeds of the plants they had chosen and grew them to seedlings under LED lights in a grow tent on site. In spring and summer, residents potted these seedlings on into small pots and grew them into viable plugs. In the fall, they planted their specimens in the garden beds, nearly 1,500 plants in total!

The residents at BCHS are beyond excited to see their plants grow and bloom next season, and we are immensely pleased with the joy this project has brought to their lives. It has been liberating and empowering for them to have an opportunity to affect change and beautify their living space. Furthermore, we are proud to have inspired the shelter’s administration to hire a landscaping company to maintain the gardens going forward, adding new plants inspired by the choices the residents made with us.

Funding for this project was provided by NYC Connect (nycconnect.org/about).