Who Are We?
Lily
She/Her/They/Them
Making nature accessible to all.
Unlike my peers in the green-industry, I didn’t grow up with meaningful access to nature spaces — I grew up in East Boston, a vast concrete-landscape; my relationship to nature was limited due to my location. The closest forested-reservation was 8 miles away — only accessible by car. My parents would tell me stories about their upbringings in El Salvador — the mango trees they would climb, the cattle their family would raise, and their simple country life that was suddenly gone due to war and instability in their homelands.
These experiences, and my work background in the non-profit sector of urban forestry, planting, caring for and preserving trees throughout the landscape greatly influence my passion for environmental justice as a civil-rights-issue. Many BIPOC have restricted access to safe, clean, stewarded lands; this infringes on their rights to ancestral knowledge, medicine and wisdom the land has to offer us. I hope to engage more BIPOC in the process of learning what it means to be an ancestral steward of the land.
Deri
He/Him/They/Them
We are the stewards the land.
The disconcertment I have for the natural-world — us and every other species, grew to what it is currently from the age of eight, at such a young age, learning the implications of littering started the bridging-process to understanding the effects humans have on Earth — we are the stewards of this land I thought; and there are implications behind our actions on Earth; our consumption; our traditions, our practices, our wants and needs — everything. I had hoped then, I would dedicate myself to Mother-Nature; invoking change through passion.
With experience and certification in green-infrastructure, tree-care, gardening, and youth/community-advancement — my commitment, and passion to restore and nourish the reciprocity between us and Mother-Nature is apparent through The Garden Body.
Our Mission
Our Goals:
01
Our primary-goal is to serve our community; specifically, those of marginalized-groups, by deepening our connection to land, our ourselves, and the communities we form — our center of attention is to our working-class elderly, our BIPOC residents in EJ-communities, and our disadvantaged youths in Boston.
Serve Our Community
02
We want to empower residents to plant and grow sustainably in the soil — whether it is for fresh-vegetables, greens, herbs — or pollinator-gardens/habitat-gardens. We provide workshops, informational-resources, and free growing-materials to residents, such as: raised-garden-beds, seeds, and seedlings.
And through collaboration with the tree-huggers of Boston, we aspire to grow and expand the tree-canopy of Hyde Park and Mattapan.
Learn why trees and habitat-gardens are important here!
We are stewards of the land.
Nurture Our Land
Deepening and nourishing our connection to land, and the natural-world is imperative before we start to nourish ourselves; our environment greatly affects our perceptions of ourselves and others — and if our environment isn’t serving our instinctual impulse for connection to the natural-world, then any effort of healing becomes lost.
The intersectionality between environmental-justice and social-justice is inseparable like birds to trees — one affects the other — and through community-alliance and community-events, slowly, but surely, collectively, we will re-bind our connection to the natural-world.
Nurture Ourselves
03
