Since then, they have started CSA (Community Supported Agriculture), and have begun growing organic vegetables in seven different gardens to benefit the poor throughout the community. As a result, people who had never approached this area began to come - middle class people who wanted to buy fresh organic produce, and students from all over the city and the state (and even from Japan) who sought meaningful community service. Today, Hilltop community has been revived by the gardens that have been created by Guadalupe Gardens.

In 2000, as Tacoma rapidly developed, the owner of one of the vacant lots that Guadalupe Gardens had developed decided to sell, so the people of Guadalupe Gardens were forced to rescue the flowers in the garden as quickly as possible before the land was cleared and converted into a parking lot. That experience convinced them to create a non-profit organization called the Land Trust. The idea was that the Land Trust would raise the funds necessary to buy the land where the gardens had been planted, so that they could be permanently conserved.

Before they could accomplish this though, La Grande, the largest of all of the Guadalupe Gardens, was put up for sale. But the price that the owner was asking was too high for the Land Trust to raise alone. So they teamed up with another non-profit organization that provided housing for low-income people, and together they were able to obtain funding from the city of Tacoma, on the agreement that a portion of the La Grande land would be converted to low-rent apartments.

Guadalupe Gardens not only revived its community, but also provided healing for many of the people who came to work there. Danny, 41, was living in the corner of one of the gardens when a staff member asked him if he would like to help gardening. Danny had been born and raised in Texas, and came to Washington as seasonal farm worker. But when he started drinking he could no longer hold a job. Because he never spoke when he first came to work at Guadalupe Gardens, people assumed that he wasn't able. But the truth was that he simply didn't want to talk. As he started growing vegetables, however, he began talking little by little. He proved himself to be a hard working gardener, and came to love his gardens. Now he has his own "Danny's Garden." "I love everything about gardening", he says. "I've found my place here."

Heidi, 46, also found her place at the Guadalupe Gardens. Although she grew up in a wealthy family and received an excellent education, she still lived a very difficult life. She became addicted to drugs, and shuffled in and out of rehabilitation facilities. But she found her love for gardening when she worked at an organic gardening program for the San Francisco County Jail (see Books: A Garden That Grows People). "Seeing organic vegetables growing beautifully without using chemicals was like seeing myself getting freed from drugs," she says. She learned of Guadalupe Gardens after she moved to Tacoma. She's now one of the main caretakers of the gardens.

What happened at the Guadalupe Gardens is happening at many community gardens in Japanese cities. Often when the owner of a garden dies, his family is forced to sell the land because they cannot afford to pay the inheritance tax. Usually, the land ends up in the hands of developers who turn it into housing. Recently, one of my own favorite gardens in my neighborhood in Nerima-ku, Tokyo was sold to a developer and became a high-rise apartment.
Green spaces like community gardens in cities would disappear quickly in the wave of development unless we work to protect them. We first need to realize the important roles that the gardens can play in the communities, as they embrace all kinds of people, and connect them to each other and to the cycle of nature.
In this column, I would like to continue writing about this subject as much as I can.