The past few weeks have been exciting, being able to engage individuals and interviews garden managers. Knowing and meeting stakeholders are an important portion of the internship experience, as it gives one the ability to hear unfettered ideas and opinions. Each location had different goals but has found that collaboration is lacking due to a disconnect in communication. Three of the gardens are only feet away from each other, but each has separate concerns. A key aspect contributing to my learning was people's reactions when it came to requesting an interview.  I sent out fourteen emails listed on the city's ecology community garden website; from the thirteen emails, I was able to interview eight, and two responded but had no intention of participating.  However, it was the one disgruntled supervisor that really taught me that no matter how nice a person is or isn't, there will always be one that will be skeptical. It was very hard not to lead the person's thinking as they asked questions attempting to pry into the specific goals of that project and internship is trying to attain. However, during that challenge, the situation arose that made me contemplate that even with academic work, internship, and research, a student can experience xenophobia and subtle racism. 

Added March 8, 2021

The more I learn, the more I realize how much more I need to learn. It has been not easy getting a hold of many city officials, yet some, like San Francisco Parks and Recrecreation department, are incredibly helpful. Although I am focusing on public health work to know other various topics is quite pertinent and useful. Landscape architecture, environmental sciences, city planning, psychologists, and business acumen are a handful of areas of knowledge needed to address a wide range of disparity issues. I have observed that although there are no studies to confirm this, community gardens seem to develop near multi-family housing units like condos and apartment complexes. Single-family homes may have large enough property to cultivate a backyard garden.  A good precursor for me to notice was city population density correlates with the number of gardens available. However, to attract people of color to community gardens, safe spaces like the East Oakland Black Cultural Zone are needed. 

Contribution to date, I have determined that my questions are beginning to form on particular specific questions like the unit family housing question and cultural zone. I have also modified my qualitative questions and waiting on additional stakeholder input to design the participant survey. Also, COVID19 has made things complicated with county and state stay-at-home orders. I am unable to determine whether participants have been able to access their plots. 

Added January 05, 2021

• Map community gardens for Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, and San Francisco counties.
• Develop a Needs assessment using permaculture and indigenous farming methods as best practices.
• Collaborate and communicate with various stakeholders in each county.
• Close the food insecurity gap 
• Advocate for more equitable access to community gardens that are managed by the city or county.

I plan to provide my findings and analysis to each county as a needs assessment and advocate for more community gardens in the neighborhoods. Densely populated cities like San Francisco and Oakland need to develop a more urban conducive community gardening method in an urban setting. 

Added on October 08, 2020