Young Governors founder and director Delia Kim (right) and a member of the youth group, Amy Wang, hold some of the vegetables that the program has grown at the community garden in Elmhurst. Forum Newsgroup photo by Luis Gronda.
A group of young teenagers has gotten involved in their local community, cleaning up eyesores and improving their community as much as they can.
The group is called Young Governors, a youth program based in the Elmhurst section of Queens Boulevard that is involved in their community and trains teenagers to become community leaders. The organization has about 30 volunteers along with a small staff that oversees the youth group.
One of their current projects is turning an empty lot that was plastered in weeds and garbage into a community garden.
The garden, which is on the corner of Kneeland Avenue and Manila Street, just off of Grand Avenue, was seen as an eye sore to the community, members of the youth group said, and they wanted to use that space and transform it into something that would benefit the neighborhood as a whole.
Group members said that while renovating the empty lot, they received advice from Russ Nitchman, a teacher at Grover Cleveland high school, on how to create and maintain the garden. Chopping down the weeds also took a lot of work, including cleaning up the space twice a week for about two months and
Members of the Young Governors youth group work on the Elmhurst community garden. The group grows vegetables in the garden and gives it to local food pantries. Forum Newsgroup photo by Luis Gronda.
spending seven hours one day pulling the weeds.
“After seeing it grow it’s amazing, it makes you feel so positive,” said 16-year-old Tala Haider, a member of Young Governors speaking about the transformation of the lot into the garden.
“It made me feel very proud,” said Kevin Salazar, describing how he helped create the garden. Salazar lives in Elmhurst but attends Forest Hills High School.
The group has grown several vegetables in the garden and donated it to local food pantries in the area. Among the food grown at their newly-created garden was summer squash, zucchini, egg plant and bell peppers.
They also hosted a barbeque back in July to celebrate the opening of the garden. Free food was offered to anyone who attended and it gave the kids a chance to show off the hard work they did and to tell them about the program.
As for what the future holds for the garden, the youth group intends on growing more crops at that garden, with the hopes of selling some of the food in order to get money for their organization. The program is funded through the fundraisers that they do as well as accepting donations from individual donors. Turning the garden into a greenhouse is also a future possibility, Haider said.
Some other events and workshops the group would like to do include a Halloween movie night, a dinner night for the homeless around Thanksgiving and a knitting class.
Although the program mostly serves the Elmhurst/Corona areas, Delia Kim, the founder and director of Young Governors, said that there is the possibility of expanding into other neighborhoods, including possibly starting a similar program in the Kew Gardens area.
The group is based at 82-10 Queens Boulevard and is open to teenagers from ages 14 to 18.
If you are interested in finding out more information on the group or joining it, send an email to younggovernors@gmail.com.
By Luis Gronda
