With very little assistance aside from a few sandwiches a day, the asylum seekers use the community garden to cook food, wash dishes, and more.
Photo by Dean Moses
Volunteers, elected officials, and migrants joined together in Brooklyn on Sunday to work for a better community and honor of the spirit of Dr. Martin Luther King.
According to locals, newly arrived African migrants have taken to spending time in the local greenspace dubbed Bushwick City Farm at 354 Stockton St.; their work serves as something of a respit from the hardships experienced while in shelter.
With very little assistance aside from a few sandwiches a day, the asylum seekers use the community garden to cook food, wash dishes, and more. On Jan. 14, a long line even formed just outside the fencing as one migrant man cut the hair of his fellow new arrivals.
Recognizing the struggles of the immigrants, Hunger Free America — a nonprofit organization — joined with Repair the World and other volunteers to work in tandem with the migrants on MLK Day weekend in order to both beautify the area for all, while also creating storage space for all in the neighborhood.
“We honor Dr. King’s full legacy by ensuring as many Americans as possible have access to ample, nutritious food, but also by advocating for policies that will wipe out hunger and poverty in America once and for all. In 1968, while fighting for striking sanitation workers, King said: ‘What does it profit a man to be able to eat at an integrated lunch counter if he doesn’t have enough money to buy a hamburger?’ King was crystal clear that economic rights and civil rights must go hand-in-hand,” Hunger Free America CEO Joel Berg said.
Volunteers erected cabinets onto the fencing so the newest residents would have a place to store their utensils for cooking while migrants scrubbed clean a sink in the area that had become clogged with leaves and twigs. Both parties also rolled up their sleeves and got to painting. Working…
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