Building A Community of Earthseed - Ashley Gripper
Dr. Ashley Gripper is the co-creator and co-director of Land Based Jawns, a Philly based organization committed to reclaiming ancestral, earthly, and spiritual relationships with Mama Earth and land for Black folks. In this episode, Ashley tells an in-depth story of her life—sharing all the interconnected moments, memories and experiences that brought her to the land work that she does daily. Through joy, grief, sorrow, and healing, all things return back to the earth and so should we. Land Based Jawns' mission and work is deeply inspired by Octavia Butlers' books: "Parable of the Sower" and "Parable of the Talents" as foundations to building communities of people rooted by establishing a healthy relationships with the land. Ashley, discusses her research around building "Agricultural Community Power" and the ways we rethink measuring success to align with Black ways of knowing that captures the practice of Ubuntu and interdependence.
This episode of In Praxis is a part of Season 3: Food Justice.
The information, opinions, views, and conclusions proposed in this episode are those of our podcast guests.
You can also tune into this episode on Anchor, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, and Stitcher. Below is a transcript of the episode, edited for readability. You can also watch this episode on YouTube with subtitles for accessibility.
Ashley Gripper
Podcast Transcription
Ashley Gripper 00:00
So I started working at the farm maybe towards June I started being on the farm more June, July, August, I at the farm like every day. And then the farm is really transforming me in a way that is hard to explain. Being on the land, hands in the soil, working sweat, performing the rituals of weeding and hoeing and, you know, communicating with the birds and the plants and the bees. Something started to happen with my grief, where it wasn't that I was like, exploding anymore, or even imploding. But my grief was going somewhere was going into the land and the land was filling me back up.
Podcast Intro 00:52
Now listening to In Praxis, a podcast from The Praxis Project created to support, hear from, and uplift the stories coming out of the ecosystem of base building organizing. An ecosystem that includes frontline groups building community power, and the folks who help support their important work. In season three, our host Blair Franklin is exploring community driven strategies for food justice. Our guest are incredible community organizers working to advance fair farming practices, community led urban farming, and equitable food procurement and retail. These are their stories about how we feed our communities with healthy, culturally appropriate, fair and affordable food and build community power to advance health equity through food justice.
Blair Franklin 01:52
Awesome, Ashley, I am so so so excited to connect with you today. And just really hear more about you and your work with Landbased Jawns. And yeah, just a big fan of your work website. just phenomenal. So I would just love for you to tell us a little bit more about who you are and what the work you do is with Landbased Jawns!
Ashley Gripper 02:11
Well, thank you for having me, Blair. I've been following The Praxis Project for a minute and have been using a lot of the work that y'all put out to inform the work that we do at Landbased Jawns and stuff. So I just want to say thank you for having me a little bit about me. So yes, my name is Ashley Gripper. I'm the daughter of Dawn Kipkin and Paul Gripper III. Both my parents have transition to ancestors. And you know, they're a big part of who I am. They're part of the work I do. They're influenced to the scholarship I produce. And yes, it's important for me to name them and bring them into the spaces with me to really honor them in their lives. I'm from Philly, born and raised, I live here currently. And a lot of the work that I do both in the academic space in the activist space and in the advocacy space is really around Philly's urban agriculture movement. It's around spirituality and healing that is facilitated through the land and connecting to the land and earth. And as you know, I just finished my PhD and yeah, finished it on Monday, this past Monday, April 11 2022, which is actually the two year anniversary of my dad's transition. So that day was really meaningful for me. And I was, you know, my committee was giving me a little bit of grief. They was like, "we don't know if you could do it by then" I was like, listen, I done told y'all what this day means to me. Like my dad wanted this PhD for me more than I wanted it for myself. So like, I want to give him the gift of getting it on the day that he transition. So I did it. I made it. I pushed through got'em letters. And now I'm out. I'm transitioning out of Harvard, and to Drexel in the fall.
Ashley Gripper 04:09
And also co-running, co-figuring out, co-creating an organization called Landbased Jawns which is dedicated to offering workshops, education and training to Black folks in Philly around land base living around agriculture around carpentry and also safety and self defense, you know, all with this lens and perspective of like prioritizing self and community healing. So that organization will be two years old in August. I mentioned earlier that Praxis Project has also informed some of the work that I do. I remember reading I think it was Praxis Project that had put out different models of leadership. And so like I'm in meetings with people who really want to be a part of the work, and help build out what we do in the city to figure out how to transition into like a shared leadership models, because I don't want to be holding on to work, you know, it's, it's a lot. And also, it's a lot for one person to hold. There's so much more richer ideas and you know, work that comes out of it being shared. In so many of the spaces I'm in we either have started out as a shared structure, or are transitioning into a shared structure. This just comes up for me over and over again, that the work is so much richer and better when it's done in community and is done with other people. So yeah, and Landbased Jawns has a lot of exciting things coming down the pike this year, we're doing the Earthseed Skillshare again. So the Earthseed Skillshare we did a couple years ago, or last year, and we're doing it again, in the fall, we're doing some international Black food justice stuff, just got a lot of exciting things happening. A lot of people who are interested in reclaiming Black people specifically interested in reclaiming their ancestral roots in agriculture and food, and I'm excited to help facilitate that for folks. So I guess that's a little bit about me.
Blair Franklin 06:20
Okay. Whew, wow! Just so much that you shared and dropped in that intro. I mean, just first and foremost, congratulations for that PhD, massive, massive, massive thing to get to that's very well aware of, you know, both the success and power that you were able to cultivate and access and moving into that space. And also, you know, just like the pain of moving because that space as well. And so yeah, just lots of gratitude for you and your work. And thank you also for just bringing us in with ancestors and talking about just both of your parents and the dates of the PhD being awarded and being that date of your father's transition. And just rooting us in the purpose of why you're here. But then also how that really connects to the larger work of Landbased Jawns and ways in which we're going to try to connect Black folks back to land, food, and power. So yeah, just so much richness. Thank you so so much. And there's 1000 different directions, we can go in this conversation. I feel like it would be great to start with what led you to doing food justice work?What got you inspired to be in it, or do what you're doing right now?
Ashley Gripper 07:31
You know, when you finished like a big thing in life, it kind of pushes you to reflect so many different things that have led you to that moment. So I've been in a serious state of reflection this past couple of weeks. And one of the things that pops up for me is like all of the people who really came and got me, my mom passed my senior year of undergrad. So that was 2011, almost 11 years ago. And I remember like, you know, after she passed, I was working at a Loft, an Ann Taylor Loft, down in University City. I had graduated and I was looking for other little jobs. I was like, I want to do something where I could use my sociology degree. You know how it is when you first graduate high school or college, you're like, "What do I do next?" So I remember one day, I was working at the Loft and this woman comes in, where her friends, two Black women, they shopping around laughing, kee-keeing and it's so cute. And we started talking somehow she asked me my advice or something she was trying to buy and wear. And I was like, "it is cute, blah, blah, blah". So then next thing you know, I'm bringing her up. And she's asking me about myself and my life. I was like, "Yeah, I studied abroad my first year". And she was like, "Oh my gosh!" then I told her I graduated with a degree in sociology. She's like, "Oh my God, that's what I studied in college". So then she added nowhere. It's like, "Listen, I don't know if this is appropriate, but are you looking for a job?" It's like, "Yes". And she was like, "Okay, I just started working at this organization right behind here called the Urban Nutrition Initiative. And, you know, let's keep talking".
Ashley Gripper 08:21
So months go by we back and forth, you know, trying to coordinate something and then maybe like three months later, she and I finally meet in person and like, sit down, have an interview. And she basically was like, I want to bring you in. I was my first job other than the Loft. That was my first job out of college was working at the Urban Nutrition Initiative, which is this kind of nonprofit organization attached to the University of Pennsylvania's Neter Center for Community Partnerships. There were a lot of issues with the organization, but that was my introduction to food work is working in that space. You know, that's kind of where I learned about food justice. I learned more about the food system and the intersections of the food system. But I don't think that I'd started developing a true passion until I went to the Black Farmers and Urban Growers conference. So I started at Urban Nutrition in 2012. Then in 2013, I went to the Black Farmers and Urban Growers conference. Just because I was interested, I was like, I want to learn, I want to experience I want to, you know, get to know more about this work, especially within the context of like Black agriculture.
Ashley Gripper 10:22
So I went to the conference and that year, I don't know if you know, Dr. Monica White was the keynote speaker. Monica since wrote "Freedom Farmers, Agricultural Resistance in the Black Freedom Movement". But at the time, she was just starting to put the seeds out there for the book. And as she was given this keynote, she was talking about Black farming cooperatives in the South, she was talking about Black people growing in cities. And she was drawing the connections in the parallels between the South and us in cities. Also the way she articulated it and like really just was telling a story, the way she did that was the first time I was able to see food as the pathway to liberation for Black people. It was mind blowing, it was world opening, it was such a transformative moment for me because she was also doing it kind of within an academic space. At the time, I was like, "Should I go back to grad school? I don't know". You know, I really liked statistics I want to do public health, I was like having all of these questions, I really think she kind of provided me with a roadmap for how this work can happen in multiple spaces. So that's where I like to say like my passion for food justice, for Black ag. That's where that was really cultivated was from that conference.
Blair Franklin 11:46
Wow. Yeah. Because what comes up for me, I think in your retelling of that is the power of one both like being seen and witnessed by people in community by our elders by folks that like just see the power potential in us, right? And just what meeting those Black women at the Loft did for you and kind of catapult you into this whole field of work. And then that just been reinforced by Dr. Monica Wright's work. Yes. Yeah. taking you on this entire journey, the power of being seen and seeing your power potential.
Ashley Gripper 12:18
Yeah, let me tell you how this is even more like exactly what you describe. So I heard Monica for the first time in 2013. But I was little me still trying to figure out who I was, you know, like 22. Then eventually, I did go back to school. And then eventually, I went back to more school, I did a master's and then a PhD. And then I went to the Black Farmers conference in 2018. Again, Monica was the keynote speaker five years later. And this was when it was in North Carolina, and her book had already come out. She was basically telling everybody, like, "Y'all gave me the blessing to write this book five years ago. Now, here I am with this book written". Basically, this is my offering to my community. So at that moment, I was like, "Oh, girl, you gotta go talk to her". Because like, she really is the reason that you went down this path. So I went, I went up to her, and I told her exactly what I told you. I was like, I heard you speak five years ago. That's the reason I went back to school. Now I'm at Harvard, trying to figure out my life. I would love if you considered if— we could build some sort of relationship. If you consider being on my committee, if you want to keynote this conference, we bout to do we have such a beautiful relationship now.
Ashley Gripper 13:33
She was one of my committee members, it's weird to say was the night is but that's was, because I'm done. She was one of my committee members. So she was at my defense on Monday, she asked me beautiful questions. She asked about Landbased Jawns, she was the only committee member who did. When we talk about Black women and Black elders in our life seeing us, Monica really saw me, not only did she see me, but she made space to hold me through all of the challenges that I was going through in that program. And you know, it's really like, I mean, a testament of the power of community and Black love, you know, Black platonic love, Black elderly, love for the young folks and for the generations coming after them. And I just really appreciate the way that these people have really kind of came and got me and the physical absence of my parents.
Blair Franklin 14:26
Yeah. Whew! words you say they just feel like medicine around the ways in which Black folk, Black love really can liberate us, you know, just hearing the ways in which you're talking about Dr. Wright and the journey that you're on right now is just so powerful. So thank you for like such a thoughtful, deep, personal storytelling to really get us started in this conversation. I think that was just so beautiful. So beautiful invitation to that medicine that you've provided to all of us. So you went to the conference for two years her Doctor Monica Wright speak twice really got connected to her in a deeper way. And of course, she was the only one that asked about Landbased Jawns. So I would love to hear talking a little bit more about that work, which started I guess you said about two years ago. So can you talk more about the work of Landbased Jawns, when you started it? What was happening in community? Like in community? And why did it lead you to want to go that way Landbased in Philly.
Ashley Gripper 15:26
Just another story! For people who don't know, you know, I said, I'm from Philly. Jawns is a Philly word. So it can mean whatever you want it to mean. So when I was growing up, Jawns is like, "Oh, you are jawn like these", jawns everything's jawns. So landbased Jawns, just refer to Philly folks, particularly Black Philly women, Black folks, trans folks who, at least one to be land based, right. Wants to cultivate a deeper relationship with the land. And so for me growing up in Philly, I didn't really have a lot of access to like nature or green space. And, you know, everything around me was really concrete. I recall one of my earliest experiences being outdoors in nature, the woods being when I was a Girl Scout, and they took us on some trip and I remember we wasn't even sleeping in tents, we was in some like, had tent have cabin situation. And I just was freaking out. I was so scared because it was cobwebs and spiders. I couldn't really sleep and I think about that experience. I'm like thing, being in Philly is kind of hard to connect in those ways. If you don't have the opportunities to really like get out there or have people to show you how to be outside.
Ashley Gripper 16:45
So, you know, that's kind of in the back of my head. But the kind of culmination of founding this organization happened, I want to say started in December 2019. I was attending a church, I still attend this church in Boston called New Roots AME and the pastor is Reverend Mariama White- Hammond. She's an ecological justice minister. She had to church to do a congregation wide read of "Parable of the Sower". So this was in December 2019. So I read this book in like January. Finish in February, and I'm like, oh, shoot this book as wild. Mind you, now it's January, February 2020. So I remember coming home from spring break and that was around the time that stuff was in the air. And they was like, "Oh, y'all might stay home, don't come back to school at the spring break". And I was like, "Yo, what's happening?" So you know, I just read "Parable of the Sower" and stuff was happening with COVID. And we don't really know and I'm sitting here thinking, like, "you know, this is wild, like, I don't know, I feel like that we should have some sort of safety plans in place". So I will say early on, after I read "Parable of the Sower", I was definitely in kind of like a survivalist mode.
Ashley Gripper 17:59
So then that's March, and then April, end of March, my dad kind of gets sick, and we thought everything was gonna be fine. You know, we had good information from the hospital, he gets discharged from the hotel with like, no real care plan with no support. My dad had been houseless for a long time. And thankfully, at the time, he had an apartment, but he didn't really have furniture, we couldn't afford stuff. So you know, I started a whole campaign to help get him like this special chair, he needed to lift his legs up all this stuff. So then April 11, my dad unexpectedly passes away. So that's happening at the same time as the pandemic is happening and I'm trying to process grief and angry and mad and frustrated at the world and at the same time afraid of the pandemic and what's happening. Then, fast forward a little bit today and then George Floyd is murdered. And then we have these onsets of protests across the—really across the world, but especially across the country across the city. And there's just so much happening at this time. And then at the same time, my friend, my dear sister friend, Laquanda, Chef Laquanda Dobson hits me up and is like "Yo sis, come be on the land with us". She's a farmer, she farmed the Sankofa Community Farm, and she called me out to the farm.
Ashley Gripper 19:22
So I started working at the farm maybe towards June I started being on the farm more June, July, August, I met the farm like every day, and then the farm is really transforming me in a way that is hard to explain. Being on the land, hands in the soil, working, sweat, performing the rituals of weeding and hoeing and communicating with the birds and the plants and the bees. Something started to happen with my grief, where it wasn't that I was like, exploding anymore, or even imploding. But my grief was going somewhere, it was going into the land and the land was filling me back up. So I'm having this experience at the same time as the world is really like, everything is shaky. And then also, I'm reading "Parable of the Talents", now parable, the talents, I think, is what did it for me, "Parable of the Sower", there's kind of like statewide collapse. And then Parable of the Talents is really hard in the beginning but then you see how they rebuild, how they rebuild community, how they get in touch with the land the processes of honoring the people who have passed, I feel like "Parable of the Talents" kind of really provided a roadmap for what that could look like for us.
Ashley Gripper 20:44
So all of these things happening at the same time. And then at the same time, I also started learning how to use firearms, how to handle them safely. So I'm doing all of this, and then I'm sharing it on social media, and people keep asking me about it and I'm like, Oh, it's a lot of people who want to know how to safely handle firearms, it's a lot of people who want to get connected to the land and learn how to grow their own food and be self reliant. It's a lot of people who are grieving and don't know what to do with their grief. I'm sitting here like, this is stirring is stirring. I talked to a few of the people who popped up on my heart, some land farmer friends, and I was like, I would love for us to consider doing this thing together. And that's when I offered the idea of Landbased Jawns, and they were all so excited. But the way things were working is that both of them didn't have the capacity. They were burnt out and I had the capacity because I wasn't doing school. I said, whatever, I need a break. So I was like, okay y'all, what if I just work on getting this thing started and then y'all can come in when y'all are ready and they were like, yes, go for it. So that's kind of the origin story of Landbased Jawns.
Ashley Gripper 22:00
You know, I started playing with the ideas and looking at "Parable of the Talents" and "Parable of the Sower" as a roadmap. I was like, what are the skills that Octavia Butler highlighted in these books as being essential to not only surviving but also thriving and rebuilding. So then, for me, being on the land myself, I started to transition from this survivalist mentality into a land based living mentality. So that's the difference being survivalism, which you know, for some people who are in really dire situations is a reality. The culture of survivalism is definitely rooted in Eurocentric values and individualist values. So I'm like, what, what a more African based or Afro-centric understanding of this be. As I'm learning from the people who are teaching me how to farm I'm like, oh, it's about community. It's about relationships. It's about living in connection with the land, not figuring out how to use the land and the earth for my gain. But actually, how do we support each other? How do we have that symbiotic process? So that's kind of when the reframing of survivalism turned into land based living and land based thriving. All of that happened within a very short span of time, like a matter of like eight months and that really was the foundation for Landbased Jawns. I've been talking and talking and talking, you can interrupt me if I'm talking too much.
Blair Franklin 23:32
You're 100% fine, great, perfect. And I think because part of what really connects folks to the meaning of food justice, work, land work, community work, right is through the power of story. And so I think just really telling the fullness of your story, and how you came to where you are, again, just as one of the methods that we have access to in this podcast has really been illuminating. Ultimately, the ways in which stories help folks to open their eyes and ears and bodies to food and land being part of the way that will liberate ourselves. Right. And so we'll never interrupt your story. I think it's important to hear the fullness of it. I really want to uplift pieces of it that I think were just so striking.
Blair Franklin 24:23
So connecting back to New Roots AME and ecological Justice Minister talking about doing a community read of "Parable of the Sower" and the ways in which spirituality and activism intersected. Also feel deeply connected to the work of Landbased Jawns, right? The same sort of connection between activism and spirituality and the way in which going to the land for you and that invitation by Laquanda really allowed you to process grief and really metabolize that in a different sort of way. And I just think about the ways in which I always tend to go to my garden and weed when I'm stressed that it's always what I do to just get back in grounded and in touch with who I am, right is like going to the garden going to the land and doing that work. And so just feeling a lot of connection to your words.
Blair Franklin 25:13
And then ultimately, you know, moving from this really rooted in white dominant, white supremacist culture of survivalism really recognizing that's not it, it really is land based living land based thriving through community relationship and connection to land. And like that, being the thing that is kind of rooting you in this work with Landbased Jawns and I really appreciate not only the connection between spirituality and land work, but also the ways in which you're really talking about like self defense and safety and how that's gonna do to this work to right. And so it just feels so comprehensive, which is—it's just dope! So yeah, just again, deep gratitude and appreciation for you and your work. I'm just curious how community has been engaged with Landbased Jawns like, have you seen folks shifted or transformed or power built through the work that you're doing? Yeah. Can you talk a little more about that?
Ashley Gripper 26:08
Yeah, you know, I didn't know how people was going to receive it. I knew that people was interested, because they hit me up on my personal socials. But I submitted a little grant. So there's Philadelphia Food Justice Initiative, that is partially city funding, but partially somewhat private funding, but the panel of people who make the selection are like Philly activist organizers, you know, people who do work around food, and they funded it. And I was like, Oh, shoot. Oh, yeah, about it. And not only did they fund it, but they were really excited enthusiastic about it. They're like, we haven't had any project come through like this, and really wanted to support this work. So you know, as I started to, like, sprinkle seeds out there and let people know, it grew like exponentially in terms of like the social media following, people wanting to be involved. I—you know, people tell me, I need to stop being surprised by stuff like this. But it was clear to me that there was a need that was beyond just urban agriculture.
Ashley Gripper 27:11
There's two things happening that I noticed in Philly, and probably I heard from other folks, that is across the country. There's urban agriculture, from like an entrepreneurial perspective, that is like growing food, I have a business and I'm trying to get paid, and like, whatever, that's cool. But there's also this other side, that's more like, we are about growing food for the spirituality practices it offers, for the community building it offers, there's somewhat of a divide, I don't want to say a divide. But what I've noticed is there's two camps are in what the response showed me that there was a gap, there was a need, there were people who wanted something deeper, people who wanted didn't just want to learn how to grow their food, but they wanted to be connected to their food, they wanted to be connected to the earthworms and all the micro organisms in the soil. They wanted to be connected to things on a deeper spiritual level. So starting now, we were like, Okay, we have funding to have about 10 to 15 people for this skill share. But you know, it was the first one. So we're like, let's just do invitations, almost like a, like a trial or like,
Blair Franklin 28:16
what, like assignment or something...Pilot!
Ashley Gripper 28:18
Yeah, I knew it was it was like on the tip of my tongue. So we like, Okay, we got six spots to kind of like, open up to the broader community and public and for those six spots, but the first skill share. Mind you, we didn't really have a website— yeah, I know, you've seen a website and website is beautiful. But that website was non existent when we was first putting it out there. And we have 40 people apply for six spots. So we were like, oh, shoot, well, this is hard and sad, because like, we can't offer it to everybody, because we just don't have space. So you know, that was the first skill share. You know, we ended up having between 15 to 20 people, which is more than we had originally planned and the response from those folks was incredible! So I told you, I'm an environmental epidemiologist, so I had surveys and stuff going on. I was like, we gotta make sure we do the evaluation. The responses just were so heartwarming and heartfelt. And I just, like, read it in amazement. And I was like, "Wow, this work is really touching people and it's really connecting with people". And what my hope was from the jump has been like, thinking like Earthseed, right. Thinking, like the community of Earthseed and the parable series is like, Okay, you learn these skills, you share these skills, the people who learn those skills, then go share their skills and that's what was happening.
Ashley Gripper 29:34
It was like skill share was then going to share what they networks in and it just was like this ripple effect and that's the point. You know what I'm saying like to me, that's how we get free. We don't hold these things and be like we're the only ones who can be the keeper of this. No! If we hoping that everybody gets free and everybody heals, from the grief, the traumas, all of the things they going through that we got to continue to share, and share and share and share and that's really what happened and you know it today, I told it's grown beyond what I could imagine. And there's mad people who like, I want to be involved in little capacity, I want to be involved in a big capacity. And that's why we get to go through this awesome process of like transitioning into like, figuring out how do we share the load and share the leadership of this organization. So that we are limiting the amount of like blind spot or like, people are not falling through the cracks, right.
Ashley Gripper 30:26
My homie Mikiah is like, I work at the library, I work at 6th and Lehigh. So you know where I'm at it's a lot of people who are houseless, who sleep on the streets, there's a lot of people who are using substances, she was like those are the people that I want to make sure that we get in programs and projects too. So that's what I mean, like our team, the way is forming so beautifully, it's like, we try to keep in mind all of the different things, all of the different people that we need to care for through this work. So that's what it's been like, the way it works is like these kind of five workshops that happened over the course of like five different weekends. So the first was Land is at the Center" and that was a intergenerational panel of four Black women, the youngest 16, the oldest 70, plus all from Philly too, talking about their experiences with growing food and connecting to the land, the historical roots, and agriculture, all of that. So that was a webinar that was open to the public. We had, I think, 120 people on the webinar, mind you, this was the first event we did, period. And I was like, oh, shoot is a lot of people. And all of the people on that webinar were from Philly. Well, I don't know. I guess there's some people I don't know.
Ashley Gripper 31:36
But a lot of it was really, because a lot of them I recognize the names. Then the second part of the series was safety and self defense. So I've since become a certified firearms instructor. So that workshop was actually three parts, we had a first portion that was really focused on somatic therapy, because we wanted people to understand the connections between mind and body. So that workshop was called "Body Mind Centering" it was about, okay, when you're in a situation, a defensive situation, what's happening between your brain and your body, physiologically, you know, and how do we understand and regulate what's happening so that we can respond. And then that was followed by more combat based workshops. So we had an instructor come in and tell us like if somebody grabs you, here's some techniques to like, get out of that situation. The third portion of that was I did an intro to pistol lesson and conflict avoidance. So we talked about the basics and we went to a range together, we learned how to, you know, do certain things together. So that was the second part of the series. The third was gardening and growing. So we had an introduction to gardening, we started a community garden together, and then we followed it with a radical self forgiveness workshop.
Ashley Gripper 32:54
Then we had "Building and Rebuilding" so we had a whole carpentry workshop, learn how to use power tools, build raised beds. Then we had a whole the rebuilding portion was a panel of organizers, Katrina Baxter and Blue Kai talking about what it means to rebuild community, what are the practices of building relationships and building deeper community. And then the last workshop was to tie it all together and that was "Land Based Living" pretty much all people from Philly who were in the in the cohort, yeah, a lot of them had never camped before and never slept outside before. So we slept outside and Bartram's Garden in southwest Philly. So we set up tents out there, we learned how to start fires together, we cooked outside on burners. And then we also had an herbalism portion where we were learning how to make medicinal salves for muscle tension and stuff like that. So that kind of tied everything that we had been learning together. Okay, you know, we learned the building, we learned the gardening, we learned the safety, how do we learn how to put it all together and thrive on the land. So it was a beautiful, beautiful time, like, you know, around the fire playing drum, singing songs, praying, crying, everything. So that's the skill share and this year, we're doing it in the fall.
Blair Franklin 34:07
Wow. Just feeling so grateful for all that you're doing and offering and the role that you're playing right now, the way that you're sharing your story. So again, just keep coming back to one that's skill share series absolutely beautiful. It really is not just about skills as it relates to the land as it relates to food as it relates to our like growing but relating to like our mind, body spiritual health, relating to the ways we forgive ourselves, the ways we lean into new experiences together and get held to that process. And really, you know, looping back around to naming spirituality, community building, and practice and skill sharing, like being those kind of formative pieces that really are helping to to just bring folks in and get connected to land, to their food to their bodies to their spirits, their minds. So yes, yeah, just like Whew! Okay. So Ashley, I would just love to hear I mean, you talked about, like, the power of what you're doing the work and bringing the people together, what are some of the barriers you're experiencing in doing this work right now?
Ashley Gripper 35:24
The biggest one that comes to mind is around land. The city that is rapidly gentrifying people are being displaced, and the cost of land has went up into the sky. So I remember looking at lots of vacant lot that we kind of transformed into a garden last year. When I first was looking at it, I think it was like $15 or 20,000. Now it's like over $30-40,000 and that's in a neighborhood that is not really gentrifying yet. So then I look around I have some ideas of places and then people have shared "Oh, I think we should go here, I think we should go here"... the cost of that land is like 200,000- 300,000. It's because like, what's happening is that there are a lot of developers coming in or people with money, business owners, whatever, buying up land and sitting on it, waiting for neighborhoods to change so that they can then sell it and make a profit. So that's making it really hard for us to anchor a home location for LBJ in the communities that we want to because you know, a lot of the places we looking at like West Philly trying to preserve parts of the Black Bottom and it's such a barrier right now, because the costs are so high. And it's just like our side of the budget that we have.
Ashley Gripper 36:39
The other thing is that we actually got money, we got a grant to actually purchase land, you know, even still with that $100,000 grant, land alone is like $150-200. So it just—that's a big barrier, not just for us, I know that's true for growers across the city is happening far and wide. And you know, land security land tenure is something that there are people working on, namely Soil Generations, and we've been designing the city's first urban agriculture planning and collaboration with a urban planning studio, we're making a lot of recommendations around land. But the other barrier related to land is that Philly is a city where the city council has a lot of decision making power over land sales in their districts. So that means if you have city council members who are corrupt, or who rather appease developers, then you're not really going to be able to contend with those developers, when it comes down to purchasing land. Like there's so many issues with it we're trying to make recommendations to the city like implement this so that it can help growers get and keep land, but who knows if the city will actually implement this thing. That's definitely the top barrier.
Ashley Gripper 37:49
Yeah, honestly, that's the main one that comes to mind. Because like, everything else has been going so beautifully. I just truly feel like this project is blessed. And my therapist always says, like, this is needed. This is why the the universe is made, and the ancestors and the creator, I'm making a way for this to happen, because it's necessary for our healing and our liberation. So you know, outside of the land thing, things have just been happening so beautifully. I mean, funding, of course, but funding has come and this is a mentality I've adopted over the years, you know, this big grant, I was really hoping we got and its application was doing my dad birthday, I was like, Oh, this is meant to be you know, and then found out, we didn't get it. And then I was like, okay, that means that wasn't meant for us. And whatever is meant for us is coming. Don't you know, a couple months later, somebody hit me up about or a staff grant. So a staff grant is different from a regular grant because the staff is like highlighted, your organization is one they want to fund and it's non competitive. The staff grant was for more money than the other grant that we didn't get. So that's what I mean by like not getting hung up and when doors closed, because the right doors will open when they're meant to. So you know, our funding is a thing, but like, it's not something that I really get hung up on or worried about. The land thing is a bigger more in my face thing. I think that's something that I and the whole team needs to practice kind of trusting the process and trusting that was meant to be will be.
Blair Franklin 39:19
Yeah, yeah, I feel like I've heard, like that refrain. So much from folks doing organizing work, like the no, that came actually led to like a bigger, more enthusiastic, more consenual, yes. Right. Like felt like more right! Again, thank you for offering that example to us about both some of the barriers that are showing up in the work around access to land, gentrification and so many ways in which neighborhoods in Philly are just Black folks in neighborhoods are being priced out of their own spaces, but also, you know, some of the ways in which opportunity and hope still exists, right? And like, the ways you're kind of seeing some of that come through or some of the work that you're doing. How do you measure success? And if you had unlimited resources, you can define that for yourself. What would you increase your impact?
Ashley Gripper 40:11
How do we measure success? So, to me, success is when my community, the Philly communities, Black growing communities are happy with the work that we do when there's impact. That is that ripple effect that I talked about like that, to me is like, how my heart measure success. Now, how I have to measure sucessess for grants is— something slightly different.
Ashley Gripper 40:18
It's a whole other conversation.
Ashley Gripper 40:43
Right? And I think that kind of boils down to how you define success. Yeah. And that's something that I am challenging in other spaces, too. I'll talk a little bit about but in terms of grant funding metrics. Grant metrics and evaluation metrics to start, it was largely about like, you know, what programs did you set out to provide? Did you provide them how many people attended, or the skill share they didn't require me to have surveys, but I was like, let's do this. Because then that'll start to not only evaluate the program for the grant, the funders, but also for us our workshops, doing what we hoped they would do. So like, that was a big part of it. You know, there were people who gave us a lot of positive feedback, there was constructive feedback, like, you know, this was too long, blah, blah, this was too short. So that gives you an idea of like, programmatically, if people are satisfied.
Ashley Gripper 41:31
Now, generally in food work, urban ag work, a lot of times funders, like large foundations ask for like, did the fruit and vegetable intake of your participants increase? Or what were the changes in BMI, things like that? So I was from the jump very much pushing against that but, they also didn't ask me for that. One thing that I'm doing in my academic work that I presented on Monday is I've developed a scale to measure something called "Agricultural Community Power" and I did that because I had been hearing time and time again, from organizations that the metrics don't align with their goals and their impacts the metrics that the funders require. So you know, in school, I'm sitting here like, "okay, how can I design a tool that was more in alignment with the impacts and goals of grassroots organizations". Through the last couple of years, I've been working to develop this scale and essentially, like I said, it measures agricultural community power, but within that, it captures collective self determination. It captures Ubuntu and interdependence, it captures land based spirituality, environmental health knowledge, and it also captures community care.
Ashley Gripper 42:44
So you know, a lot of the questions and items that went into that scale came part from Monica White's theoretical framework in "Freedom Farmers", it came from these focus groups that I had with urban growers in Philly, it came from my lived experience as a Black farmer, and also conversations that I've had with other Black farmers about what the impacts are to them. So this tool is supposed to hopefully be more in alignment as an evaluation metric with like, Landbased Jawns goals, for instance, than if, let's say some large foundation was like, or the USDA was like, we want you to measure BMI, then I could be like, "No, actually, I'd rather use this tool, this instrument". So that's kind of how I'm hoping to measure in the future, the scale is finished. But I do need to do a couple more tests to make sure it works in different communities. But yeah, so that's a little bit about how we measure success and impact. What was the second question? I've been talking a minute.
Blair Franklin 43:41
Oh, that's great. I want to actually pause for a second because what you shared was just major, major, and I made sure to share information about how folks can contact you toward the end of this conversation, because that scale is so necessary, and it transforms the game. So I just am like, please, please, please make sure you let folks know how to find you where to find you. So when it feels finished, and when it feels ready for community participation, sharing whatever that looks like for you. You know, I would love to make sure folks know about it. So yeah, I just wanted to say, Whew, that is huge!
Ashley Gripper 44:24
It's a lot of work.
Blair Franklin 44:27
I can't imagine. The second part of the question was just if you had unlimited resources, how would you do to increase your impact?
Ashley Gripper 44:32
Limited or unlimited?
Blair Franklin 44:34
Unlimited.
Ashley Gripper 44:35
Oh, unlimited. Okay, wait first. So I need to do another round of pilot tests had a little bit of over representation of white people. So now the second round. Second round, I'm doing the pilot test only among Black, Brown Indigenous folk and just to make sure like, alright, is it the same does it end up slightly different in a different population? It's not a different population because we definitely have Black, Brown, Indigenous people on this already, but I want to have more of a representation of our folks. So I'm hoping to have that done like around early next year, like January, February. At that point, I'll be at Drexel. So if you just like Google, my name, and then type Drexel email should pop up.
Ashley Gripper 45:16
But yeah, unlimited resources. So one of the main hopes from the jump has always been to have land, land that is out, out a little bit outside of the city that's like 10 to 20 acres to have people come from Philly, to do this skill share, we don't have to worry about some of the things that we have to worry about in the city. So we could do you know, safety and self defense on the land, and also do growing and gardening, carpentry do all of the workshops on the land and multiple times of the year. That would be like our run— so a couple million dollars, just probably to purchase land. And then honestly, like, there's so much demand and like need for this work, that funding funding is a big need. Because that way, people could dedicate more time we could bring in folks to do the healing workshops, we could do the firearms workshop, we could do all of these things more frequently throughout the year instead of just one skill share if there were unlimited resources available to Landbased Jawns, we will be doing this work around the clock. So you know, I mean, obviously with rest, rest. We will be doing this work, you know, so that people couldn't get the skills that they wanted and they needed and be able to have land outside the city as a kind of refuge and healing space, but also have an anchor in the city for folks who can't get to that that space outside.
Blair Franklin 46:42
Mm hmm. Yes. And we are going to put energy manifestation spirit because it is necessary for Yeah, for Philly and for all of us. So, Ashley, I just want to say thank you so much for all the wisdom you shared with us today. And just the deep personal storytelling and sharing and just the incredible work the skill sharing that connect folks back to land Black folks in Philly that is so incredible, just when I'm like thank you so so so so much.
Ashley Gripper 47:15
Thank you It's really been a pleasure to be here and to in the chat you know, like I thank you for the platform to allow me to share about my parents and share a little bit about my journey and in the work that Landbased Jawns is doing this is this is important and I think this is how the resources and the skills and the knowledge gets shared is through platforms like this so I really appreciate you Blair.
Podcast Outro 47:53
Thank you for listening to this episode of In Praxis. We hope you all enjoyed it. Make sure to visit our website www.thepraxisproject.org. Where you can check out additional episodes with other guests, as well as learn more about our work.
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
people, land, philly, community, Black, food, workshops, power, survivalism, parable, work, connected, skill, city, grief, space