WHO WE ARE
2nd Chance Book Garden is a community collaborative garden and book shop where community members can donate and adopt plants and books. The shop features houseplants and an indoor nursery garden filled with various plants – vegetables, herbs, etc. – along with arts and crafts created by local community artists. Books in the shop focus on cultural diversity, histories, transformative justice in native languages and authors for sharing and telling stories through food that resonates with cultural and social identities, cultivating healthy and regeneratively sustainable living in our own narratives.
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WHY
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“Second Chance” in the name is because of Rhody Grows Hope, a container gardening program by CC4ES, that repurposes various items as planters to grow food for food security while improving environmental health. Books donated get second chances for outreach education that fosters food sovereignty, resonating community cultural identity in creating our own narratives on what we eat. Food security in tandem with food sovereignty ensures food justice, a gateway to environmental, social and economic justice.
Second Chance Book Garden is a pilot prototype of CC4ES’ Second Chance Studios & Shops. It is a hybrid of shop and entrepreneurship incubator maker space that serves as a community hub in both on- and offline formats. It cultivates food justice for community member-led, narrated and empowered regenerative sustainability that intersects and champions environmental, social and economic justice and equity in the communities’ own turf and terms.
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WHAT WE DO
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2nd Chance Book Garden hosts community events and workshops for outreach education on gardening skills to grow food, nutrition, healthy and sustainable lifestyle for individual and collective stewardship, raising awareness of the necessity of food justice for healthy and happy living. Such programming in the form of guest-speaker presentations, reading circles, exhibition galleries, gardening and cooking demos provides not only basic life skills but also skills training for jobs in sustainability sectors, sustainable food systems in particular.
2nd Chance Book Garden coordinates community engagement at Gardens of Second Chances, an outdoor community garden created by community members with Rhody Grows Hope, where community markets, backyard Rhody Grows Hope garden demos and other outdoor community events take place.
At both Gardens of Second Chances and 2nd Chance Book Garden, internship and apprenticeship opportunities for community members with community businesses are facilitated through CC4ES’ Hope Gardeners program, integrating entrepreneurship into such programs.