Baltimore Community FellowshipsApplication Guidelines | Fellows & Grantees | Fellows Profiles
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Baltimore, Maryland
2007
Every Saturday, at the Waverly Farmer's Market, a group of newly minted African-American and Latino farmers will be selling their wares: tomato plants, lettuces, cilantro, strawberries, and kale. They are members of Huerta del Centro or Downtown Farm, a collective started by Irene Muñiz, to help bring members of the two racial groups together.
With a background in community organizing and social action, Muñiz wanted to use her fellowship to create a safe space where people could share their stories about racism to work together to bring about social change. She believed it would help heal individuals and communities.
Originally, Muñiz hoped to bring together low-wage workers of diverse backgrounds to facilitate a conversation across cultural differences toward improved working conditions and economic stability for all low-wage workers. She held trainings, exercises and activities at CASA of Maryland's Worker Center in Baltimore.
The actual work proved to be much harder than coming up with her fellowship idea. Initially, the African-American neighborhood surrounding the Worker Center resented the Latino day workers. It took a series of emotional meetings over several months to try to resolve differences. On top of that, Muñiz says she encountered challenges with her host organization.
Eventually, Muñiz realized she would have to modify her project. After discussing it with the two populations, her fellowship evolved into the Downtown Farm, a food co-op that brings together Latino and African-American day laborers from East Baltimore to develop a small business.
From that experience, Muñiz learned a key lesson about being a social entrepreneur: the importance of flexibility. "I had to learn to be creative and open to different ideas," she says.
From May through September 2009, the co-op will operate a CSA (community supported agriculture) program, which will allow individuals to buy a share of the co-op in exchange for a small portion of each week's harvest.
"If you bought a share, you can get five to seven items of whatever's harvested," Muñiz says. "But we don't want money to be a barrier, so you can also work for a share - just a couple hours at the garden."
The food co-op is a real success, and Muñiz will stay on with the workers through the end of the season. After that, the goal is for the workers to keep the Downtown Farm up and running.
"In everything we've done, we've learned that we're all equal. We all have shared in the process of developing our mission statement and our goals," Muñiz says. "Everybody's just played a key role in developing, and hopefully sustaining, the project into the future."
