"Being in Philadelphia, there is not much land for them," says Da Lam, a Cambodian refugee who works part time as translator and unofficial social worker for the gardeners and others at a senior center run by the Nationalities Service Center (NSC) in another church, about 10 blocks from the garden. (The nonprofit NSC, based in Center City, works with refugees.)
And so, like foreign-born newcomers all over the country, they've created a community garden for themselves, one that offers all the usual benefits - camaraderie, fresh air and exercise, delicious vegetables - and then some.
Refugee gardens, as these projects are called, also "become a way for people to express who they are in terms of national identity or cultural identity. The gardens can be a source of pride," says Amy Stitely, an urban planner at M.I.T.'s Community Innovators Lab, who has studied refugee gardens in Boise, Idaho; Lewiston, Maine; Lowell, Mass.; and Utica, N.Y.
The Logan gardeners, who include some American-born seniors, have 42 densely planted, raised beds tucked into three plots on the lawns of Our Lady of Hope.
There, as city traffic roared up North Broad Street last summer, they quietly cultivated organic bitter melon, which looks like a warty cucumber and is a mainstay of Asian cuisine; tomatoes, greens, bok choy, and other Chinese cabbages; peppers of all kinds; and popular culinary herbs like Italian and Thai basil, chives, mint, lemongrass, and rosemary.
Every morning, Seng Hay, the senior center cook, would survey the garden, see what looked good, and plan her lunch menus accordingly.
"She made simple, fresh meals. Delicious," recalls Tara Schwartzendruber-Landis, the center's program director, who rounded up a $27,000 nutrition grant from the state to build the garden.
