Hyde Park & Mattapan

Gardening for Empathy

Join us in stewarding the land; exchanging seeds and seedlings to create yards and streets full of plants and native pollinator-gardens.

Our greenhouse (8x16) features herbs, and veggies from our ancestral-lands; Haiti, Palestine, and El Salvador — as well as, other plants grown by community-residents.

What is Gardening for Empathy?

Prioritizing empathy for the land and other living-beings through gardening and stewardship — gardening sustainably in the soil to revitalize our connection back to Nature; acknowledging the micro-organisms & insects tending the soils beneath our feet and the natural-ecosystem around us; allowing space & empathy for the bees, birds, and other critters on Earth while gardening.

Gardening for Empathy is a initiative to involve the community residents of Hyde Park and Mattapan, a largely working-class and immigrant-community (Haitian, Dominican, and Jamaican), about food-sovereignty (revitalizing our ability to grow our own foods,) and stewarding the land (understanding the value of environmental-conservation, and sustainability).

Our intentions are to empower residents to plant and grow sustainably in the soil, whether it is for fresh-vegetables, greens, herbs, or pollinator/habitat gardens. Through door-to-door, seminars, and workshops, we'll provide resources, free seeds, seedlings, tools, garden-beds, and space in our greenhouse for residents with limited-space. We’ll engage community-residents about how our freedom to grow from the soil; to raise new-earth, can be quite sustainable. We'll learn about soil remediation, plant identification, land stewardship, native plants, native wildlife, and the importance of acknowledging the land.

Native seeds and educational materials created by us, given to attendees and community residents.

Our Impact

As of September 2026, since starting Gardening for Empathy in April, we are continuously hosting seminars and workshops with local residents about native vegetation; creating and planting native habitats, and the importance of native trees. Often with presentations being presented in Haitian Creole.

Countless amounts of native seeds were given away to residents, either through our drop-off locations, door-to-door, or through our events.

Although, our true impact has been from the meaningful connections we’ve made with residents, neighbors, and friends through establishing reciprocity and kinship (big shout-out to Robin Wall Kimmer,) between us and the nature-world.

Our Intentions:

We hope this initiative grow bigger than us, we hope this initative starts conversations, advocacy, plantings, communalism, and stewardship of the land — in turn, while nurturing land, we nurture ourselves.