National Rebuilding Day 2019: SheBuilds for the Community!

As April comes to a close, we at CommunityGrows are celebrating the successful completion of a nearly year-long project with Rebuilding Together! The SheBuilds team joined us at Koshland Community Park and Learning Garden on National Rebuilding Day with the goal of  increasing the capacity and existing green space in the garden, as well as building on and revitalizing the awesome space that is already there. Over the course of two weekends, we had over 60 womxn donate their time, skills, and energy to beautifying the space for our neighbors and students, and we are thrilled with how the project turned out!

On April 27th, hundreds of volunteers mobilized around San Francisco (and thousands across the US) to take place in Rebuilding Together’s National Rebuilding Day event! CommunityGrows was lucky to partner with an amazing SheBuilds crew to tackle our garden projects. The main focus of our day was an underutilized hillside in the southwest corner of the garden. The prep crew cleared the hillside the weekend before, so on the build day we landscaped the top of the hill with native and pollinator plants, as well as 2 new fruit trees. On the lower, flatter half of the hillside, we built and installed 5 planter boxes to be used by new community gardeners.

I really want to be on the planting crew – I think it’s really therapeutic to dig holes” – volunteer during project assignments

Other projects for the day included creating a chalkboard and welcome sign for the outdoor learning classroom; painting the garden shed; and completing a variety of garden projects to open up and beautify the space. The garden is totally transformed!

Working in the garden, I forgot we were in San Francisco for a minute” – volunteer taking in the view from the hill outside the garden

This process has definitely been a team effort and we are very grateful for the hard work that all of the partners and volunteers have put into this project! A special shout-out to Rebuilding Together and SF Rec and Park for all of their help throughout the whole process, and thank you to PG&E and CalReleaf for their support! We hope to see you in the garden soon!