Day 5: Mill City Grows and Greater Boston Food Bank

This morning we headed to Mill City Grows in Lowell, which was visited by the AB Boston group last year.   The alleyway we were working in was once a hot spot for trouble, drug sales, and drug use.  Someone in the Lowell community said that they saw this place to be an opportunity for people to come together to make this a more enjoyable location.  The land use planners worked on this project because they too recognized that if they changed the alley, the entire neighborhood could change and it could become a place people would want to live.

Today when we walked on the job site the once run-down alley was an 80foot concrete sidewalk with a beautiful arch way above.  The arched sidewalk then led to the back alley that was also freshly cleared and paved.  There were a lot of potted plants, including small grasses, some flowers, and little trees, that the planting team was asked to line the walkway with to make the walk scenically enjoyable.  These plants need water, especially since no one will be there regularly to hydrate them, so an irrigation team helped a leader install a soaker hose system. There was an artist there working with hydrophobic paint that shows up invisibly and when it rains the culturally diverse sea animals she was drawing will appear.  Down the alley way there were large murals that were done by a well-known, local graffiti artist that gave the grey space a lot of color.  The ribbon ceremony for this alley was proposed for next Wednesday, and thanks to our help they believe this deadline is obtainable.

This afternoon we went back to the Greater Boston Food Bank (GBFB) to take on a new task. We worked in the sorting room and checked all the donations for damages and expired products.  There were two other groups with us today, which were Twitter and some Latter Day Saint Elders, which was really fun and we were extremely productive (despite Kelli -the room manager- jokingly throwing his fake mice in people's sorting bins). With the collective 20,860 pounds of food we sorted, the remaining donations will now be sorted on the conveyer belt before distribution to the community.  Today was a lot of fun with beautiful weather, and we're looking forward to working with both of these organizations again tomorrow.

-Candice and Elizabeth