Now that we're into the onset of winter 2009-10, harvests are generally completed and gardeners across the country are putting up their hoes and trowels and can finally catch their breath.
"Yeah, except that isn't happening to me," laughed Livia Marques. She's got a lot to catch her breath about--since she's been serving as Director of USDA's "People's Garden Initiative," Department-wide, since its official launch earlier this year. For the last 11 months the PGI has promoted such activities as growing an assortment of fruits, vegetables, and other plants-- in order to illustrate the many ways USDA works to provide healthy diets for children, fight childhood obesity, provide a sustainable, safe, and nutritious food supply, and protect and preserve the landscape where that food is produced.
Marques's formal title at the Department is "Special Assistant for Horticultural Crops," and that's reflective of her background, both educationally and career-wise. Born in New York City, she grew up in Hialeah, FL and earned a B.S. degree in horticultural science from North Carolina State University in 1990. She then managed a landscape nursery in Raleigh, NC for two years before beginning her USDA career as a Soil Conservationist with the Natural Resources Conservation Service in Duplin County, NC in 1992. Then, during the rest of that decade and into the new millennium, she worked in such positions as an NRCS District Conservationist in Milford, NH and Brattleboro, VT, an NRCS Plant Resource Specialist in Annapolis, MD, an NRCS State Conservationist in Reno, NV, and ultimately a Science Delivery Coordinator at the Forest Service's Southern Research Station in Asheville, NC from 2006 until she took her current position at USDA headquarters in Washington, DC.
Marques explained that she had been asked to come to USDA HQ on a detail to help out with the expansion of an already existing garden, located at USDA's Whitten Building in Washington, DC. It was being formally turned into USDA's "People's Garden" on February 12, 2009--the 200th birthday of President Abraham Lincoln, who founded USDA in 1862 and who had referred to it as "The People's Department." She arrived in time for the groundbreaking--"or 'the jackhammering,' as I like to call it"--she quipped, referring to the fact that Secretary Tom Vilsack had begun the formal ceremony by driving a jackhammer into a plot of asphalt.
At the groundbreaking Vilsack encouraged USDA field office personnel around the world--literally--to develop People's Gardens, both on their own office property and within their local community. He followed that up with two particular e-mails to all USDA employees--dated July 17, 2009 and Aug. 27, 2009, respectively. They both represented his "People's Garden Message To All USDA Employees." He wrote that "I'd like to encourage every person who works for USDA, all one hundred and three thousand of us, to look for opportunities in our home communities and home areas, at USDA offices or churches, or at schools, or in community garden facilities to participate in the People's Garden movement."
As part of Marques's approach to help USDA agencies promote this initiative, she looked for opportunities to link those agencies with community-based volunteers. "My roots are in NRCS--which has a well-established program for using volunteers from local communities," she recounted. "So I just assumed that all USDA agencies had similar programs." When she found out that wasn't the case, she helped to draft what turned out to be Secretary's Memorandum 1059-001, dated July 8, 2009 and titled "Volunteer Program for the People's Garden Initiative." "That document created USDA's first-ever volunteer program that was offered to all USDA employees Department-wide and that also enabled all agencies to develop community-based volunteer programs," she said.
In addition to ensuring that she had a PGI coordinator in each USDA agency, another tactic Marques employed was to create a Partnership Forum. "I wanted to reach out to groups who had an interest--and also experience--in an initiative like this," she explained. "I wanted to 'leverage our resources'--excuse that jargon--and I definitely didn't want us to try to reinvent anything here at the Department." Accordingly, she contacted such groups as the Henry A. Wallace Center for Sustainable Food Systems and the National Gardening Association, and currently is working with over 35 such national organizations. That Forum came up with the PGI logo and provided thousands of seed packets to help start gardens at USDA field offices and at community locations nationwide.
So, what's the progress of People's Gardens at USDA field sites? "Well," Marques replied, "there are two creative examples in Gastonia, North Carolina alone. AMS's Federal Seed Lab didn't have land available outside that facility, so staffers developed an indoor lettuce garden in the lobby of the building. That's thought to be USDA's first indoor field office garden. Staffers at AMS's National Science Lab recently built a bee garden on the grounds next to their testing facility in Gastonia, to highlight the importance of improving the pollinator population. And FAS staffers at the U.S. Embassy in Seoul, South Korea helped set up a People's Garden in an unused greenhouse that's part of our ambassador's residence there. Local school kids are taking care of that garden--which represents the first People's Garden located outside the U.S. So, yeah, it's been a busy first year."
Last Book Read: "'Bajo La Luna Negra'--which roughly translates as 'Under The Black Moon'--by Ernesto Santana."
Last Movie Seen: "'Where The Wild Things Are' with my son Levon--especially since I've read the book to him so many times."
Something I Don't Want People To Know About Me: "I once killed a houseplant. Horrors!"
Priorities In The Months Ahead: "Oh, lots more People's Gardens! Specifically, I'm hoping to triple the number during 2010."
