We grow food in the heart of Carbondale. Washington Street Garden is a community food project. The Garden is also home to an herbal apothecary plot! Join us.
03/26/2025
Apologies for the delay in sharing this. Carbondale Food Autonomy was somehow deleted off of Facebook, so in the meantime give them a follow on Instagram to keep up to date with events from the collective. Since WSG is hosting the Neighborhood Planting Project again this year, we are excited to share this post on their behalf. Hope to see you there!
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Save the date for our Annual neighborhood Planting Project! Saturday, April 12 we will have a variety of native fruit and nut bearing trees for distribution to the community, as well as other select plant starts and cuttings on a first come/ first serve basis. Suggested donation $1 per tree to help cover the cost of the project and pay it forward for a neighbor. No one turned away for lack of funds.
This year we would like to redirect attention to the world of carceral capitalism and how it displays itself in our everyday. Most systems we engage with daily are in part built and sustained by prison labor; from the food and products we buy to the communications and other infrastructure we access regularly, the unpaid or *EXTREMELY* low wage labor of incarcerated individuals provides the outside world with excess, even while their own conditions remain inhumane and basic needs go unmet.
Many state nurseries (such as where our trees are sourced) are no stranger to using prison labor directly from state department of corrections. As we recenter this project around abolitionist principles, we felt that a first step was to bring some awareness and context for our local project. In the new world, we will have our lives dedicated to each other and the environment rather than to the economy; where new forms of relating to one another flourish, helping to transform our systems of punishment to systems of accountability.
The goals to our local NPP are many: to advance the mission of Food Autonomy by providing neighbors with low/ no cost food producing trees; to contribute to local reforestation, biological diversity, and ecological rejuvenation; to offer alternative modes for community members to connect with each other outside of the traditional economic market; and, finally, to dismantle the systems of oppression that continue to exist through the prison industrial complex.
In what ways do you see the issue of climate change and abolition overlapping? What might your role be in building autonomous food systems while working toward the freedom of all people? We are excited to hear your thoughts when you come to pick up trees 🌳
