Since 2007, Common Good City Farm has provided Washingtonians with more than 10 tons of fresh produce, giving Ward 1 residents access to fresh and sustainable food in the heart of the city. To ensure future service to the community, the nonprofit hosted one of four Garden Party fundraisers on June 12.
With a live DJ, a movement and dance workshop, and a dinner menu consisting entirely of produce grown at Common Good, the urban farm’s fundraiser created a space for fellowship, education and self-determination.
“This is just a great way to connect with the community and really experience what I think is a real jewel in the crown of the city,” Ward 1 resident Aaron Mosby told The Informer. “Having an urban farm just a couple of blocks away from the hustle and bustle is amazing.”
As 37% of the District’s residents experienced food insecurity between May 2023 and May 2024, urban farms work to ensure residents are fed in a way that is both affordable and environmentally conscious.
Further, since the farm is essentially located in many residents’ backyards, organizations like Common Good are reducing the time the produce travels and not contributing to potential greenhouse gases emitted if it were imported from elsewhere.
For Common Good Farm Educator Wes Mahmud, being in this line of work is incredibly fulfilling as it aligns with his values of sustainability and equitable food access. At the farm, he teaches people organic and sustainable practices, as well as regenerative agriculture, which focuses on maintaining soil health by adapting to ecosystem processes and changes.
“[Urban farms] are really important because they give people access to healthy foods that they wouldn’t have access to in the first place,” Mahmud told The Informer. “For a lot of people, the only healthy food they have access to is at the grocery store and a lot of that is grown with pesticides [or] grown genetically modified… so I love having the chance to give them access to actual healthy foods.”
Farming and Movement as Paths to Liberation
The United Nations predicts the world population will reach 9.8 billion by 2050. To sufficiently feed 9.75 billion people, scenarios mapped out by the USDA Economic Research Service show that production would need to increase by 14,060 trillion crop calories, which is “a 47% increase from a 2011 baseline.”
While global food demand continues to rise in tandem with the population, local leaders like Chef Matthew Gaston of Sapphire Kitchen, who curated the fundraiser’s menu, have stepped up with innovative solutions to promote healthier, more sustainable eating habits. He hopes to utilize his brand, Eatsapphire, to help communities enhance their health through food and education.
“A lot of the way we can take autonomy is what you’re eating and putting in your body,” Gaston told The Informer. “I think that’s the one [circumstance] where you can gain the most power and understanding of who you are and what helps fuel you.”
Gaston’s menu consisted of prawn and rice crackers with garden vegetables; vegetable tamales; cucumber chili crisp with lemon balm, smoked carrot and basil; hummus and grilled vegetables with garlic tahini; focaccia with fig leaf and guava queso fresco; and larb with ground chicme or mushroom in a kale leaf wrap.
The D.C.-based chef told The Informer he wanted to highlight the produce currently being harvested at the neighborhood farm with this spread. By doing so, Gaston hoped to celebrate the farm’s abundance by avoiding outsourcing produce as much as possible and inspire attendees to cook innovatively.
“I just saw what they had available and thought about what we could make from that and adapt to utilize all parts of it,” he said. “I hope people take away the fact that there’s a lot of different ways to use things that we see all the time. Like there’s a million different ways to eat a cucumber, but maybe you had it a way this time that inspired you to try it another way.”
In the spirit of promoting wellness and vitality, the fundraiser also included a dance and movement workshop led by local dancer Jiamond Elizabeth Watson, who uses her art to help the African diaspora live in their power and promote spiritual restoration caused by colonization and white supremacy.
She believes events like the garden party are integral in combating the efforts made to disconnect the diaspora from its ancestral heritage, as attendees were able to get in touch with their hearts and humanity by coming together as a community to have fun through food and art.
Watson’s workshop consisted of exercises that allowed people to step out of their comfort zones by shamelessly and organically moving their bodies. The eclectic dancer encouraged attendees to be proud of the space they take up.
“Movement is life,” Watson told The Informer. “We need time with each other to really restore our nervous systems, to restore our connections to one another and restore our connection to our home base– our bodies.”
Just as Watson considers dance and movement a way for people to step into their power, Mahmud said he believes the same thing about farming, since through it, people can feed themselves and their community, while promoting physical health and active environmental stewardship.
“Taking back farming and agriculture as a way of sustaining yourself is one of the most revolutionary ways you can be active in your community,” Mahmud told The Informer. “There’s so many ways that you can change the position of your community and help them, but I think it all starts with your diet, [because] if you’re not fed suitable foods, everything else will fall.”
Common Good City Farm will host three more events in the Garden Party series on July 25, Sept. 19 and Oct. 9.
