Guest:  Jeanette Koncikowski

Topic:  Community Garden Disability Accessibility Survey

Host:  Welcome to Independent Perspective, a public affairs presentation of Western New York Independent Living (WNYIL). Our guest today is Jeanette Koncikowski, Executive Director of Grassroots Gardens WNY and your host is yours truly Ernie Churchwell. Welcome to the program Jeannette.

Guest:  Thank you so much for having me.

Host:  It's our pleasure. You're here because you're making an outreach toward people with disabilities in the community as part of the work of your organization. But I think a lot of people are probably not even familiar with it, if you could tell us what is the purpose of Grassroots Gardens WNY?

Guest:  Sure, so Grassroots Gardens is an agency that advocates for and works with the community gardens in the cities of Buffalo and the City of Niagara Falls. And so, we are an urban based organization, and the 2019 season we had a record 110 community gardens affiliated with us,

Host:  There's a particular need for community gardens, because of hesitancy of some major supermarket change to locate in the inner cities of those two areas.

Guest:  Correct, yes. So, we have both in the city within the city of Buffalo, including specific neighborhoods and within the City of Niagara Falls. There are areas that have seem kind of long-standing systemic disinvestment of major grocery store chains, and that still has happened today. I mean the last kind of major grocery store on the east side, the Tops on Jefferson has filed for bankruptcy and is closing and so what ends up happening is people are in communities without easy, affordable access to fresh food. And so the community gardens play a critical role in meeting that gap for people that might have difficulty getting to grocery stores, to be able to purchase their food, whether that difficulty is because of transportation, whether it's because of lack of income or income inequality. And so, the gardens are really there to help bridge that gap

Host:  And what gets us particularly excited is the fact that you're reaching out to people with disabilities to tell you just how accessible the different gardens are. Could you tell us how you're going about that?

Guest:  We have started a new focus on accessibility as part of our broader focus on inclusion in 2019. That really started with our garden on Victoria Avenue on the Upper East Side of Buffalo. We had gone out to look at a wheelchair pad that had been poured, as we were installing an accessible raised bed, wanted to make sure that path was done correctly. And I wasn't sure, so I had asked Independent Living to come out and take a look at it. And one of your employees did that and said yeah you know this is fine, but here's 30 other things you're not thinking of around access in this garden. And we, you know, took everything he's had to say about it and said well this is one garden we have 100 plus spaces like this, you know, what are we not doing to invite community in, especially community members that have disabilities and so that really launched this idea for forming a broader coalition to look at accessibility across our community garden network.

Host:  And you're doing that by providing surveys, both in print and braille to people interested in commenting on accessibility of their favorite local gardens. If you could tell us how people could call you to either access the survey, or otherwise find out more about your organization?

Guest:  Yes, so if you are able to get online if you find us at www.grassrootsgardens.org and there's an SN grassroots at the end and SM gardens at the end, the survey can be accessed online via clicking on our accessibility initiative page and you'll scroll down and read about the survey and can click take the survey. We also recognize that a number of folks in the community do not have access to Wi Fi or might need technology to assist them in accessing web-based surveys. So, we also have Braille copies of the survey available with Olmstead Center for Sight, and then we're distributing hard copies available through some of our service partner agencies like Deaf Access Services and Olmstead and WNYIL. You can also call our office at 783-9653 to get more information about taking the survey. And the survey really is to just find out if people have encountered barriers to access if they visited their nearby community garden and recommendations for improvement.

Host:  Terrific. Well thank you so much for being with us Jeanette it sounds like an exciting outreach to the disability community and we're glad that you're doing it, you have a good day.

Guest:  Thank you so much.

Host:  You've been listening to Independent Perspective, a Public Affairs presentation of WNYIL. Our guest today was Jeanette Koncikowski, Executive Director of Grassroots Gardens WNY and your host was yours truly Ernie Churchwell.