The Edgemont neighborhood in West Dayton lies between I-75 and US-35. Its most intact residential area is southwest of Burkham Park.
There’s some empty industrial lots like the concrete slab where the old General Motors factory used to be. There’s a railroad that goes right through it and then there’s the Edgemont Solar Garden.
In the last few years, the Greater Edgemont Community Coalition has been busy working to re-establish its most significant project, the solar garden, which was established back in 1978.
For years, the coalition had been working to secure funding from the city to redevelop the garden. Earlier this year, the city approved those funds in the form of an $85,000 grant.
Central State University also partnered with the garden to introduce the Beginning Farmer Incubator Program— a program teaching Black and beginning farmers how to overcome some of the most common obstacles when starting a farming business.
Additionally, there's plans to build a new supplemental building as a community space. It will also focus on having food education workshops, like healthy eating or how to preserve food after its been harvested.
Alejandro Figueroa speaks with Omope Carter Daboiku, the farm manager, at the garden on what this growth means for the neighborhood as it focuses on building a stronger local community around food in Dayton.
Transcript [edited lightly for length and clarity]
Alejandro Figueroa: Can you talk about the history of the Edgemont coalition, and it’s most significant project, the solar garden.
Omope Carter Daboiku: The original Edgemont Community Council established a grow operation in 1978 here on some formerly industrial land owned by standard register. The people who worked that land initially were some of the original Southern migrants who would have come to the city in the late 20's, early 30's.
In 2015, there was a fire, an electrical fire that burnt down the supplemental building that was used for the community and the group of the descendants' decided to reactivate the board. They created the Greater Edgemont Community Coalition and of the seven initiatives that they have. Healthy food and teaching people how to reconnect with the Earth is one of the pillars.
Figueroa: What is it about the people that moved them to reactivate this coalition, like you said, back in 2015?
Carter Daboiku: The people who are the board members who grew up in this community are in their seventies, late sixties and seventies, and they can remember when the community was self-sufficient and vibrantly so. And as we all age into eldership, we want to leave a legacy. And the only way to leave a legacy of something that you didn't get directly is to charge yourself to learn because the first generation farmed.
But while they were farming, they told their children, go enjoy themselves or go study. And they went and became civil servants and worked in professional jobs where they earned enough that they didn't have to learn to farm to preserve food. Well, their parents weren't doing it because they had to. They were doing it because they loved to.
So we're restoring African-American heritage crops as a way to remain healthy and also as a way to work off urban stress. Because the Earth doesn't ask for anything except for you to keep the weeds out the way.
Figueroa: And I know the city granted some money to the coalition through a community block grant, so what has that money meant for you all in here?
Carter Daboiku: Yeah, that log jam in City Hall finally broke and a couple tens of thousands of dollars came for infrastructure, not salaries, not utilities and not programming. But infrastructure meant that we could get the tractor that we needed to be able to more effectively use this land.
We're in conversation with Dayton Public Schools about the feasibility of farming some of their empty school properties. So the tractor will come in handy for the expansion of the urban AG.
And we have a solar array installed that will begin to power the office in the greenhouse. And we're really looking forward to that being an example to the community of alternative energy strategies.
Figueroa: And you’re also having a Fall festival this weekend. Can you talk about that?
Carter Daboiku: Oh! We are celebrating the end of our second growing season with Central State Incubate Extension's Incubator Farm. We are also celebrating the opening of the third year of our engagement with Central State Extension.
We're also celebrating the events that have happened in the last year. The plans for the new building, the new tractor will be on demo. And it's going to be great fun. And there's porch pots that people can buy at a discount if they want a little late summer bloom on their porch.
The Edgemont Fall Festival will be from noon to 9 p.m. Saturday September 17th. It’s co-sponsored by the Dayton Urban League and the Levitt Pavilion. It will include grilled turkey, beef and vegetarian burgers, music and a farmers market with produce from the garden.
Alejandro Figueroa is a corps member with Report for America, a national service program that places journalists into local newsrooms. Support for WYSO's reporting on food and food insecurity in the Miami Valley comes from the CareSource Foundation.
