Deeply Rooted aims to bring trees and gardens to four Philly neighborhoods

When Aqil Abdus Sabur was a teenager growing up in Grays Ferry, he used to walk across the bridge to Southwest Philadelphia every Sunday for one reason: Southwest and West Philadelphia had more trees.

“There was a noticeable difference,” he said. “The shading, the atmosphere, the quality of life.”

Decades later, he’s one of the community leaders in a project to bring trees, gardens, and greenery — and the health benefits they engender — to four Philadelphia neighborhoods. Deeply Rooted is a three-year, $6 million project funded by Penn Medicine and the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia’s Healthier Together Initiative. It’s led by the Penn Urban Health Lab, along with 13 other community and faith-based organizations. The Pennsylvania Horticultural Society will provide the greening expertise for improvements in Philadelphia’s Mill Creek, Cobbs Creek, Haddington, and Kingsessing neighborhoods.

The communities were selected because they have high rates of gun violence, lots of vacant or abandoned properties, and little greenery. Organizers also considered which neighborhoods have a high rate of death related to heart disease.

The group plans to tackle more than 1,000 vacant lots, planting 1,500 trees, and building mini-parks and gardens.

We recently spoke with Sabur, who works for Sister Clara Muhammad Community Development Corporation, and Eugenia South, an assistant professor of emergency medicine at Penn and faculty director of its Urban Health Lab.

South: My research has shown, broadly, that every time we step out of our homes and walk around our neighborhoods, whether to go to work or school or see friends, the environment around us is having an impact on us — on our health, our mood, our train of thought, our biological functioning. We often don’t realize it. But there is an impact.

An example: In one of the first studies I conducted more than 10 years ago, I asked people living in neighborhoods like Mill Creek — with a high rate of vacant lots and abandoned houses — what they felt the impact was on their health. People talked about vacant spaces fracturing ties between them and their neighbors. Even if there were positive things happening on their block, a vacant lot or a vacant building overshadowed it. There was a quote I’ll never forget. One person said that, because of these spaces, they felt neglected.

One of the most interesting findings is that people reported going outside more and socializing with their neighbors more after greening, compared to lots that got no intervention.

Another finding was that people reported feeling less depressed. There was a direct link between this intervention — cleaning and greening a neighborhood — and people’s mental health. One of the major findings, the main thing we were looking for, was a reduction in gun violence. We found that it goes down significantly.

South: Deeply Rooted is a community-academic collaborative, and that ordering of the words is purposeful, with community being first. We have community partners in each of the four neighborhoods, and our goal is the decisions about the trees that are planted, which lots to green, who will get mini-grants, are all being led by our community partners.

We have resources. But they’re the ones who live and work in the communities. We’re not coming in and saying do this, do that. We want you to work with us to decide how you marry the evidence of what we know about health and safety with what’s happening in your neighborhood and what you want to see.

There are four pillars to what we’re doing: We want to increase the amount of green space. We plan to give community activation grants to leaders who are doing environmental justice work. The third is career development; we want to provide opportunities to build skills related to greening, horticulture, and landscape work. The fourth is environmental justice advocacy.

Sabur: Deeply Rooted is definitely welcome in our neighborhood. The current statistics relating to employment and educational attainment are what they are. But this was always a thriving manufacturing and business community. A majority of residents, more than half, are between 5 and 35 years of age. It’s one of those places where people really love their neighborhood. We have many multi-generational families.

The neighborhood has everything that’s necessary for an initiative like this to flourish. One of the things we’re engaged in at the Sister Clara Muhammad Community Development Corporation is bringing in other services to complement the initiative. We conducted an initial survey about 30 days ago that indicated 70% of the community would welcome horticultural and agricultural education.

There is a recognition that it’s a challenge, but one the community welcomes.

Sabur: Moderately priced, affordable housing that is bordered by a number of trees, well-kept community gardens, and a consistent green space program that serves each new generation of young people. Robust small business development. A STEM program that includes a robotics curriculum. Other benefits that result in the current residents planting deeper roots, as this initiative is so aptly named.

Right now, every generation’s kids go to the neighborhood library. That’s part of our growing up. I’d like to see education about trees, the benefits of green space, and activities that the succeeding generations can take advantage of and benefit from. It would just carry on into their adult lives. Like it did with me.

What is critical to the success of this initiative is community awareness of the benefit. One reason communities are reluctant to get on board with things like this is when the benefits are not clearly explained, it feels like something is just being thrust upon them. Because we have deep roots in the community, we know the community; our children have been raised in the community, and it’s a much easier proposition.

There’s a different type of discussion that takes place in households if, for instance, there’s a community garden and members of the community are involved in the planting, tending, and harvesting. That becomes part of the family discussion around the dinner table. Or in school. It’s a different type of discussion, as opposed to the violence that has taken place that week or that month.

When you’re tending the garden, and when you have trees and landscape, you just get different discussions.

South: We had our spring launch on May 14 with four events in each neighborhood.

This spring, we are greening 200,000 square feet of vacant land and planting 30 trees. This summer, we’ll kick off the first round of community activation grants.

When will we be finished? Hopefully never. The goal is to raise more funds to support the initiative past the three-year mark. We want to be present continually, and to build on the work that we’re doing.

The Philadelphia Inquirer is one of more than 20 news organizations producing Broke in Philly, a collaborative reporting project on solutions to poverty and the city’s push toward economic justice. See all of our reporting at brokeinphilly.org.