Join us for our Spring Awakening Celebration Saturday. April 20. We are meeting at 11:30am at El Sol Brillante, 522 E.12th St between A & B. Our parade steps off at Noon with our Tree Goddess, Batala, Stiltwalkers and more. 

The parade will travel east on 12th St, south on Avenue C, west of E.6th St, north on Avenue A and enter Tompkins Square Park at 7th St, meander through the park and end on Avenue B and 9th St.

There will be many greening groups representing on Avenue B.
From 2–4 pm free pony rides will be available for kids.

At 2:30 on Avenue B Isabel Estrada-Jamison’s group will perform Afro-Cuban folklore and Rumba.

From 3:00–4:30 pm a garden tour will be led by Magali Regis, meeting at 9th St & Ave B.

There are other Spring Awakening events happening in various gardens throughout the day. This schedule is still in flux, so these times are approximations.

At 1:30pm, DeColores, 311 E.8th St ( B & C) is hosting a meeting to introduce the migrants to the community gardens, followed by a short tour of the gardens.

La Plaza Cultural ( SW corner of 9th & C)

2 PM: Elika Healing Bowls

2:30 PM : Bubblez

3pm: Poetry featuring Sparrow, Truffles, David Carter, Flip Marinovich, Jill Rappaport and Bob Holman

4pm  : Christopher Thomas

430pm : Bartho

5PM Open Jam with Ali Bishop (from the HAven Jam)

6 pm NORY

6:30 Sylvain Leroux & Sources

7:30 Kid Java

Lower Eastside Girls Club

Here is the RSVP link, to the Planetarium Shows but walk-ins are OK.

Pancho’s Garden (formerly 9C garden, NE corner of 9th & C) will have a memorial for gardeners who passed away in the last year, hosted by GreenThumb.
2023 In Memoriam for GreenThumb community gardeners who passed away at Francisco “Pancho” Ramos Community Garden

UPDATES to Follow!!!

SUNDAY SURPRISE!!

Theater Workshop and Performance!! LA PLAZA 5:30 pm

Performance by The Commons Choir:

UPON HUMANS is a multifaceted project by The Commons Choir that includes auditory and somatic performance and educational components.

As an archeology of the Kassandra myth, UPON HUMANS utilizes the Faïn/Kocik Prosodic Body voice and movement methodology to unwind the curse of denial, giving renewed significance to contemporary prophetesses. Confronting the disregard of the warning signs from those with scientific and intuitive foresight, this project proposes ways to restore the relationship between our miraculous yet fragile interdependence with the planet.

This performance is part of a series of SEED BOMBS, an emergent program articulating the larger, durational project UPON HUMANS. Designed as an event series, SEED BOMBS will introduce the overall project and explore its broad themes. 

The performance features two performers, dancer Samantha Lysaght, and juggler Luther Bangert.

Two bills have been introduced in the New York State Legislature for a vote – calling for community gardens to be designated as Critical Environmental Areas. 
Both bills have the same wording and purpose which read in part as follows: 

Requires the community gardens task force [of the New York State Department of Agriculture & Markets] to conduct an assessment of all community gardens located on publicly owned land in the state to facilitate each garden’s designation as a critical environmental area. 

A Critical Environmental Area (CEA) is a geographic area with exceptional or unique character with respect to one or more of the following: 

• a benefit or threat to human health; 
• a natural setting such as fish and wildlife habitat, forest and vegetation, open space, and areas of important aesthetic or scenic quality; 
• agricultural, social, cultural, historic, archeological, recreational, or educational values; or 
• an inherent ecological, geological, or hydrological sensitivity that may be adversely affected by any change. 

On Monday,  the State Senate passed CEA Bill S629A.

Now Assembly Bill A4139A is before the members of the State Assembly’s Ways and Means Committee.

Assembly Bill A4139A calls for a regulatory Process by which community gardens can be officially designated as CEAs.

When passed this will raise the “environmental impact review process” bar in order to help preserve & protect community gardens as CEAs. 

Both bills have the same wording and purpose which read in part as follows: 

Requires the community gardens task force [of the New York State Department of Agriculture & Markets] to conduct an assessment of all community gardens located on publicly owned land in the state to facilitate each garden’s designation as a critical environmental area. 

The State Senate bill was sponsored by State Senator Leroy Comrie. He represents the 14th Senatorial District of Queens 

The State Assembly bill (A4139A) is sponsored by State Assemblymember Donna A. Lupardo and co-sponsored by State Assemblymember Steven B. Raga. 

Assemblymember Lupardo is the Chair of the Agriculture Committee She represents the 123rd Assembly District, which includes  Binghamton,  Vestal, and Union, the villages of Johnson City,  and Endicott 

LupardoD@nyassembly.gov

Assemblymember Raga represents the 30th Assembly District of Woodside, Elmhurst, Maspeth, Jackson Heights, Astoria, and Middle Village. 

ragas@nyassembly.gov

The Assembly bill A4139A is currently in the committee review phase before the very powerful Assembly Ways and Means Committee. This is the link where you can see information regarding the status of the Assembly bill: 

Please visit by email, phone or in person, the members of the Assembly Ways and Means Committee, including the Committee Chair, Helene E. Weinstein, in order to communicate yoursupport for the Critical Environmental Areas Designation of community gardens along  

PROTECT COMMUNITY GARDENS 

Contact members of the Ways and Means Committee and tell them why you support this effort to protect the gardens and why the New York State Assembly Ways and Means Committee should vote in favor of the bill. The members of the Ways and Means Committee can be found HERE
 
 

4:30 pm Kids & Family  Socially distant Tango Tangles class. Dance tango connected via a rope, host DD Maucher. 

De Colores Community Yard & Cultural Center, 8th St (Aves B &

 6pm Standup Comedy: Joan Reinmuth and Nature Boi Comedy

Green Oasis, 8th St (Aves C & D)

6:30p Music. Family PLAN: Immaculately conceived in 2018 in Brooklyn, Family Plan is an aesthetically diverse three-person extraction. The contemporary jazz trio consists of the Canadian pianist Andrew Boudreau and two Chileans, Vicente Hansen and Simón Willson, on drums and bass, respectively. Family Plan has performed at venues such as Scholes Street Studio (NYC), Dièse Onze (Montreal), and the LilyPad (Cambridge), among others. Descendants in equal parts to the sensibilities of high- and low-brow music, Family Plan is performing this concert to celebrate the release of its eponymously-titled debut album comprised entirely of original compositions on Endectomorph

Outside of Grace Exhibition Space: 182 Avenue C, Between 11/12th streets

4:30 pm  Kids: Run the Obstacle Course Challenge: painted decorated boxes become an obstacle for a children’s race course. Lead by runner & passionate health advocate Harry B. Lichtenstein.  

6:00pm Wellness: Herbal Class with Noreen Kelly, ND Free Medicinal Herbal Class.  We will learn how to identify medicinally viable plants, determine what is a “weed”, examine the traditional uses of these plants, look at some of the current science, and then make a tea.  All are welcome. https://www.naturopathnyc.com/

:30pm Social Protecting Wilderness: Ancient Forests and Our Future Breaths Learn about an ancient wild forest in the Yaak Valley, Montana – “the lungs of this continent” – that is under threat of being cut and sold for profit. – Write your own imaginings of what the forest has to teach us in our current age of fires – Create a silk wildflower that is native to the Yaak Valley that will be part of the body and organs of a 10-foot puppet installed in this forest.  – Integrate embodied artistic practice, political advocacy and community action.

Also Friday, Oct 1 at 182 Ave C & Saturday, Oct 2 at El Jardin Del Paraiso at 4th /5th between C&D

De Colores Community Yard & Cultural Center, 8th St (Aves B & C)

6:30 pm PERFORMANCE: Tim Cusack’s “I Ping the Body Electric” reimagines Walt Whitman’s iconic ode to the human anatomy from the perspective of a 50-something, HIV-positive gay man. This solo dance-theatre piece, co-created with director Patrice Miller, foregrounds Cusack’s queer, aging, “diseased” bodily presence as the focus of the performance, in the process disrupting and challenging normative valuations concerning “masculinity,” “youth,” and “health.” 

La Plaza Cultural de Armando Perez (Ave C & 9th St)

FILMS 6pm “GARBAGIA” RT: 10 minutes, Or how the trash was one.

9C Garden, corner of Avenue C & 9th St)

CALLING ALL ARTISTS

LUNGS (Loisaida United Neighborhood Gardens) is inviting all artists to paint your masterpiece in public on the fences of community gardens in the East village and Lower East Side.

Join us in “Art Around the Hood,” Saturday, June 5, Noon to 5pm.

as part of GreenThumb’s Open Gardens Day. We supply the canvas, you supply the paint and the talent. Make your statement, show your true colors  Sign up at  info@lungsnyc.org

20 Community Gardens are participating in Art around the Hood

LaGuardia Corner Gardens, 511 LaGuardia Place, Houston & Bleecker Sts

Petit Versailles, 247 E. 2nd St, B & C

Peachtree Garden, 221 E. 2rd St, B & C

Jardin Los Amigos, 221 E. 3rd St, B & C

Parque de Tranquilidad, 314 E. 4th St, C & D

El Jardin del Paraiso, 305 E.4^th ST, C & D

6 & B Garden, 84 Ave B, 5th & 6th Sts.

6BC Botanical Garden, 624 E.6th St, B & C

Carmens’ Garden, 17 Ave C, 7th & 8th Sts

DeColores, 313 E. 8th St, B & C

Firemen’s, 360 E 8th St, C & D

Green Oasis, 370 E.8^th ST, C & D

LaPlaza Cultural, 674 E.9^th ST, corner of C

9C Garden, 144 Ave C, corner of 9th St

11BC Serenity Garden, 626 E.11^TH ST, B &C

East Side Outside, 415 E 11th St, 1st & A

El Sol Brillante, 522–528 E 12th St, A & B

Campos Garden, 644 E.12^th ST, B & C

Vamos Sembrar, 197 Avenue B St, 12th & 13th Sts

Dias y Flores, 520 E. 13th St, A & B

There more events in various community gardens throughout the day, stay tuned to stay up to date.