By Bonita Gooch/The Voice
Through weekly gardening and wellness events, ICT Tree Huggers aims to teach and heal the community.
Sarah Myers traveled the country for her makeup business for more than a decade when she decided to return home for family.
When she came back to Wichita four years ago, Myers said she witnessed difficulties that had been bubbling for 50 years in the City’s District 1 or northeast Wichita community.
What Myers saw inspired her to begin ICT Tree Huggers, a nonprofit that aims to stimulate sustainability practices and gardening in vulnerable communities. By sustainability practices, she means actions that meet the needs of individuals today without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs.
Myers realizes her work can’t just worry about the future. It must also address what she saw in the community – the impact of decades of historic injustices, systemic racism, policy failures, and economic marginalization.that have left these communities in a unique and disproportionately harmful environmental condition.
Educating the Community
Despite the Tree Hugger name, Myers says the organization’s work is about more than hugging trees, planting trees or just recycling. It’s about addressing and bringing attention to the harmful environmental conditions that exist in the communities she serves.
“Because if our environment is sick, the people on top of it are going to be sick too,” says Myers.
Myers says the choices individuals make to help improve the health and sustainability of their community is a personal decision but everyone can do something.
“It’s about taking responsibility for how we take care of each other and the earth,” says Myers. “It’s really about making intentional choices within our community to protect the natural resources like water, air and soil.
As an example, Myers chooses to forgo driving and bikes everywhere. That’s a buy-in level many people may have trouble committing to, but Myers says it’s important to choose something(s) and commit to them.
Often, Myers says what’s keeping people from taking action is a lack of knowledge. That’s one of the areas where ICT Tree Huggers fits in – education.
They teach individuals and families about being a part of the long term solution, because a lot of people don’t know how to take care of the environment.
Almost any weekend, you can find ICT Tree Huggers at pop-up events across the city, providing information and answering questions about sustainability, wellness and gardening.
Allison Williams, partnership coordinator for ICT Tree Huggers, leads weekly yoga sessions. It’s a program she says helps bridge the wellness aspect of ICT Tree Huggers. Currently, the organization offers Slo Flo Yoga each Wednesday from 7 to 8:30 p.m. at their office at 1200 Waterman.
However, the bread and butter of the program’s educational efforts centers around gardening.
ICT Gardens
There are plenty of activities that can be done to address environmental injustice and sustainability. Myers decided ICT Tree Huggers would focus on gardens as a way to address food deserts and provide low to no-cost healthy produce in a community where it’s too often lacking.
This is the organization’s third year gardening in Wichita’s 1st District. While most amateur gardeners limit their regime to the spring and early summer months, ICT Tree Huggers are at at least 10 months a year. They’re planting cool season vegetables in January and starting seedlings indoors for planting outside in the spring.
By March, Myers says, they’re ready to get outdoors and put their hands in the soil.
While core team members attend to the gardens daily, logistics lead Alec Mortimer, says Tuesdays and Saturdays, from March through September, are scheduled days for community gardening support. On those days, long-term volunteers, individuals, families and often groups wanting to give back help in the gardens.
Myers notes, individuals needing community service hours are also welcome to participate.
The day begins at 8 a.m. with coffee and socialization, then the group goes over the planned work for the day. People often come and go, but all participants can stay for as long and short as they like.
What participants get out of the work depends on what they’re looking for. Lots of individuals are interested in learning about the sustainable gardening practices the group practices, like no-till gardening and regenerative soil practices. Both are part of a growing movement to farm and garden in a way that heals the land instead of harming it.
These methods are especially powerful because they restore soil health, increase resilience to climate change, and promote long-term sustainability—all while growing healthy food.
Some individuals join to plant a row and take or share their yield with family, friends or donate them to the community. All of the produce from the gardens are donated to volunteers, members of the surrounding community or organizations who make the produce available for individuals in need.
In addition to home-hub, business, and other small pot and community gardens in the 1st District, this year the organization has a large demonstration garden behind CHD Boxing near 9th and Grove. Also this year, the organization is guiding the non-profit Cure Violence, in developing a major garden location in Plainview.
Looking Ahead
ICT Tree Huggers, is a non-profit that so far has operated on donations and a small amount of grant funding. Myers says the organization wants to do more, but the lack of funding is limiting their work.
Myers says the organization wants to offer more educational programming. For example, she wants to add classes that teach individuals how to can and preserve the produce they grow so they can enjoy the fruits of their labor all year long.
To help make that class a reality, Myers says the organization needs donated Mason Jars. The organization is also in need of a dry preserver, in case anyone has one hanging around they’d like to donate.
Donations of cash, no matter how big or small, tools and supplies are always appreciated. The organization is a 501-c-3 non-profit, so donations made to them are tax deductible.
Also, if you know of any grants the organization can apply, let them know. More information about ICT Tree Huggers is on its Linktree.
Mia Hennen, KMUW contributed to this story.
This article was republished here with the permission of: The Community Voice