On to City Slicker Farms:

We rode to the Center Street Farm on the corner of 16^th and Center. City Slickers owns this small plot outright; they use over fifty farms of varying sizes throughout West Oakland. Some of the plots are on vacant lots, some backyards are ‘leased’ to the farm by neighbors. The Center St. Farm, at a mere 4,000 square feet, produces over 2,000 pounds of produce per year! This farm is host to a variety of chickens and ducks, 11 fruit trees and a rotating density of crops. The farm has an extensive education and volunteer program.

The farmers there were real friendly and told us all about their work. They were interested in our project and helped us with our survey. There we met a local teacher who described West Oakland in this way: “grounded, gang killings, but very rich.” She is worried about the kids but has hope: in her school she believes that there is a great deal of respect among people; that when someone says “Bless you” or “Have a blessed day”, they really mean it.

Across the street we noticed a bunch of old chairs in front of the building. They just seemed like junky abandoned chairs, out there with no purpose. After being at the farm for a short while, we saw the chairs slowly fill with a group of guys, just hanging out and enjoying the sunny Saturday afternoon. It can take time to understand a locality; if we had just zoomed by in our car, we wouldn’t have known the story behind the chairs.