We are planting a garden to expand our mutual aid effort and food sovereignty in our community. Succotash Gardens is partnering with PowerHouse Church (COGIC) at 25 E. Roosevelt to develop a food forest within a collectively owned and managed 14,000-square-foot lot to provide environmental education and fresh food for the community. Black and Latine working-class residents in our community in Roosevelt, NY, face significant environmental health risks like urban heat island effect, food apartheid, and exposure to environmental toxins. Succotash Gardens will be a space of refuge with tree cover, access to healthy foods, environmental education and skill-building, cultural preservation, art and dialogue. I recently graduated with a master's program in religion and ecology at Yale Divinity School (YDS) and Yale School of Environment (YSE), where I studied agroforestry, land conservation, and fostered a faith that centers the voices of Black/Indigenous women as they engage in earth justice. I am bringing my knowledge and skills back to my community in Long Island, NY, with the effort to build a community garden. We need people power, materials, and funding to get started! Will you help us raise $10,000 to buy materials for essential infrastructure (lumber, soil/compost, tools, water system) and support our labor?