Neighborhood Empowerment

Alchemist CDC is committed to working with local neighbors to support grassroots efforts to solve community problems and pursue visions of the common good.

We believe that communities have within themselves the vision, passions, and ability to do good and great things and have a history of collaboration with neighbors to help good ideas to be implemented and to grow. This work falls under three primary areas:

  1. Community Food Connections – This collaboration with multiple partners helps to get groceries (including farm-fresh produce) to some of the most vulnerable families in the Sacramento City Unified School District. Learn more about it here.
  2. Land-based work – Through these projects, we help transform under-utilized and vacant land into vibrant, neighborhood amenities through direct community engagement, design, and hands-on participation in creating public gardens and community gathering spaces. These include:
    1. Oak Park Sol Community Garden – A publicly accessible community garden in the heart of Oak Park. This garden grew out of a neighborhood desire to have a creative green space that could serve as a place to grow food, demonstrate sustainable practices, share knowledge, and build community connectivity.
    2. Pansy Avenue Community Garden Park – A small corner park with community garden plots adding green-space and recreational access in a neighborhood lacking those amenities.
    3. Oak Park Art Garden – In development with an expected opening in mid-2025, this project will be a shared community space and will also host an e-bike lending library and a tool library.
    4. Mirasol Village Community Garden – This new community garden is the largest city-owned garden in Sacramento, developed under the SIMPL project with Transformative Climate Community (TCC) funding as one piece of the Mirasol Village Redevelopment Project. Alchemist CDC has been contracted to manage and activate the garden for its first few years of operations, and will continue in this role until April 2025.
  3. Quick responses to urgent needs – We try to remain nimble in order to occasionally work on immediate, temporary projects as they are needed, such as Community Cooling Stations during heatwaves.

 

Our Past Projects also help tell the story of how Alchemist has grown and engaged in the work of Neighborhood Empowerment.