Gardens! Films! Greenpoint!

HELP US MEET A DOLLAR-FOR-DOLLAR MATCHING CHALLENGE!

This summer, we hope to gather folks in the dusky shade of Greenpoint’s two community gardens, 61 Franklin St. Community Garden and Java St. Community Garden, to watch films, to learn more about the world that surrounds us, and together explore what we might do to make things better. 

The plan is simple: We will present 3-4 different films over the course of July and August, playing once in each garden on consecutive nights. These films will be presented by special guests, and will be free to attend.  

The films will be drawn from the abundance of excellent, imaginative, and thought-provoking contemporary documentary about green issues (sustainability, waste management, natural resources, food security, pollution, and the like).  

We have not yet chosen the films — that is part of the fun and purpose of the project.  However, a list of the sorts of films we hope to program might include:

• Wasted
• Divide in Concord
• Five Seasons: The Gardens of Piet Oudolf
• The Devil We Know
• The Islands and the Whales

Finally, we seek your help to make this happen. We have been given an incredible opportunity through IOBY, whereby they will double every dollar we raise with matching funds. That's a good incentive! And as every farmer tells us,  you have to make hay while the sun shines. 

So, in keeping with the ethos of the gardens themselves, we plant this seed of an idea, in the expectation that it will grow if we tend to it. 

Thank You 

We will undertake this project in 5 simple steps:

1. First, if you are reading this, we have already taken the first step, to launch a crowdfunding campaign. This is the big step, and incudes seeing it through, and advocating for the project through both gardens and their extended families. 
2. Second, we will assemble a team of up to 5 folks to select and pre-screen films. (Interested? Email us!)
3. Third, we will promote the selected films to our Garden communities, and perhaps indulge in a postcard for the neighborhood. 
4. We will present the films in each garden on successive nights in July and August, with special guests (Directors, Subjects, Experts) on hand to start conversations. 
5. We will help to facilitate engagement between audience and issue after the evening is concluded, to the best of our abilities. 

…and then we might have a glass of wine to celebrate!

Gardens grow communties and ideas, alongside flowers and vegetables.

We are inspired by these gardens, to the hope that through their connection to the natural world, they might help us to see our connection to that same world more clearly.

We are inspired by these communities, to the hope that even as we nurture plants worth tending, we nurture ideals worth defending.

And we are inspired by the power of ideas, to start conversations that lead to action.

That's why we're doing this.