Cultivating Community: Ideas for the Evolver Atlanta Garden

Do everything with work parties, and make them equally work and party! Seriously- if your events aren't actually fun, interesting, or somehow entertaining or enjoyable, it will be difficult to build real community support.
Once the garden is starting to thrive, throw a block party, with lots of good food, live music, maybe some dancers, interactive public art, or any combination of fun::ness.
if this is too youth-oriented, go for something chiller..... design it for the group in the neighborhood you want to connect most with, and think will want to get involved. (probably underemployed young people who are chillers...)
If you get 7 people from different "realms" on an organizing team, you can pull off a great event that can attract a good variety of people.
invite artists to put outdoor art and statues in the garden
-build a roof with a picnic table under it, or at least a bench.
use the garden as a staging ground for micro-urban-farmers who grow food in other people's yards in exchange for a share of the harvest.

I was thinking that eventually you could work with organizations that feed the hungry. For example, have a program that grows food for them or perhaps they could rent a section of the land and grow their own food. I've been thinking about this sort of thing for a while, ever since I heard that food donations have gone down. Another possibility is to have classes for these organizations and teach them how to grow food, get involved with CSAs, etc.

These are all wonderful ideas! Thank you so much!

After attending the event, I have some thoughts to share.

I feel it is important that Atlanta Evolver maintain a clear focus especially while the group is small and beginning to grow. A lot of different ideas, projects, and groups were brought up for consideration. All of them were worthy, but it would be very easy for the group to disperse its energies in too many different directions and too thinly.

The core principle behind Evolver seems to be raising consciousness.

In this regard, I would suggest that a key focus of the group become a series of seminars, workshops, expos, and events each based around a single theme. Here are some obvious ones growing out of the discussion:

Urban Agriculture

Alternative Health

Alternative Economies

2012

Climate Change

The Meditative Mind

Alternative Energy

Each event can consist of speakers, workshops, and hands on activities. Speakers and presenters should be primarily local with perhaps someone non local as a main feature speaker.

These events could occur approximately every 3-4 months. They would need extensive planning and possibly planning 2-3 events ahead. This provides many roles for members to perform with alternating managers and workers on different events.

In this view, Evolver Atlanta takes on more of a coordination role that brings together diverse efforts of groups already established and makes them known to each other and to a wider audience.