Once home to dilapidated garages and a magnet for illegal dumping of garbage, truckloads of rubble, and abandoned vehicles, the lot now known as the Columbia Heights Green was a vision that many thought couldn’t happen. The first call to Washington Parks & People for help on the Columbia Heights lot came in 2006 from frustrated neighbors — both immigrants and long-time African American residents — who worried that the site was becoming a permanent eyesore and crime magnet. Chip Fawcett, the late chair of Parks & People and a lifelong champion of DC’s parks, saw the opportunity to transform the site into a lasting community green.



Thus began the creation of a community coalition led by neighborhood residents such as local designers, Washington Parks & People, and many other partners including Ward 1 Councilmember Jim Graham. Determined and mobilized, they established a unified plan to transform this blighted vacant lot into an organic raised-bed community urban farm featuring butterfly gardens, berry patches, a greenhouse, native flowering and shade trees, green job training, and a learning and gathering space.

For awhile, the effort seemed hopeless due to more than 40 tax liens on the site, miring it in what appeared to be permanent limbo. It took special legislation by the DC Council, coupled with a massive legal effort donated by a local law firm, to wipe out the tax liens and at last deliver the site to community ownership. Even after the community acquisition, the Green face entrenched illegal dumping and enforcement challenges, complex stormwater engineering requirements, and bureaucratic and permitting hurdles.



Despite the long process, WPP and the Columbia Heights community were persistent and their perseverance ultimately led to the successful opening of the Columbia Heights Green on September 11, 2010.



The Green is now a blueprint and model for communities across the city to undertake similar green conversions of forgotten spaces. As part of the nationwide surge in community greening and gardening, Parks & People has provided mini-grants, tools, and technical assistance to 60 community greening sites across the city with the help of thousands of community volunteers and over 250 Green Corps graduates.



Today, the Green thrives under the management of Parks & People and the leadership of a dedicated cadre of community volunteers. In 2019, the Green grew over 700 lbs of produce, the majority of which was donated to the Sacred Heart food program and Martha’s Table. As well as growing fresh, organic produce this past year, Parks & People partnered with cultural organizations to host a wide-range of cultural programs at the Green such as SudorFest with partner Son La Lucha, which brought together DC musicians across all genres of music to celebrate their art, and the Park’N Lot Stories, a program with GALA Hispanic Theatre that is addressing the challenges of gentrification, displacement, and changing communities.

Long believed to be a private lot, the Marvin Gaye Greening Center sat empty and abandoned for years. Where others saw an overgrown field, Washington Parks & People saw opportunity. After discovering that the lot was in fact public property and part of the Marvin Gaye Park corridor, we were able to, along with a wide range of community partners, to reclaim this long-forgotten plot of earth and transform it into the vibrant cultural, nutritional, economic, and educational hub that it is today. In addition to serving as a base of community stewardship and programming of Marvin Gaye Park, DC's longest municipal park, the one-acre site provides introductory green job and enterprise training through Parks & People's Green Corps program, cultural and educational programming through our ParkArts program, park-based health through our Heart & Soul program, and year-round food through our Community Harvest program.

In 2019, Parks & People and community partners held a wide range of free community events including the 3rd annual Easter Egg Hunt, Art All Night, Back 2 School Day where we gave out free backpacks and school supplies to Ward 7 youth, and the 3rd annual Pumpkin Patch that even featured horseback rides for families! The Marvin Gaye Greening Center is equipped with a stage for performances, expeditionary learning garden beds, grills for fresh produce cooking demos, a new outdoor farm kitchen coming soon, and even has an on-site office space. To partner with WPP in hosting a free community event, email info@washingtonparks.net for more information.

Parks & People commits itself to a vision of a park whose beauty is equaled by its food production value. By placing urban agriculture in the midst of our public land, we are demonstrating that our parks and greens can be both sources of inspiration and nutrition. In just a few years, Parks & People, our partners, and thousands of volunteers have come a long way in advancing this vision of park-based urban agriculture. Food grown at the Marvin Gaye Greening Center is given out to local Ward 7 and 8 families at no cost and used in healthy cooking demonstrations at our Riverside Healthy Living Center around the corner.

At the Riverside Healthy Living Center, Parks & People is developing DC's first comprehensive Healthy Food Hub. A model of full-circle food production, preparation, distribution and consumption is enabled through the incubation of seedlings at Riverside as well as the use of Riverside's newly renovated commercial kitchen, café and community hall as a site for a farmer's market, healthy cooking classes, catering and other food-based enterprise.

We invite you to come see the impact we've already made, and take part in the work that remains to be accomplished! If you are interested in volunteering at the Marvin Gaye Greening Center, call us at 202-462-7275 or visit here to sign up. To partner on a community program, please email us at info@washingtonparks.net.

Located at 5000 Nannie Helen Burroughs Ave NE in Ward 7.