In 1982 when Cambodian community was settled in Greensboro North Carolina, their main source of livelihoods were textile and furniture work. In 1986, the Cambodian community bought this land under the Khmer Buddhist Society, which would later become known, colloquially, as Wat Greensboro Buddhist Center. It became a thriving center for community gatherings, support and healings with lush vegetable gardens, a beautiful pond, and even a large swimming pool for children during the summer. As the textile and furniture industry began to collapse starting in the early 90s, many families were left in a scramble to find new jobs and some began to move out to different states in search of sustainable livelihood. This soon cause a drained in the social capital and human resource of the community, and slowly the gardens began to be overtaken by bamboos, trees and the pool fell into disrepair and drained. The once active pond also became polluted with upstream flows, and without resource to divert the flow of water from upstream neighboring property away from the pond, all species that once inhabit the pond also disappeared as it became a stagnant pool of green algae.
With the help of the KBR grant, our CCC of NC team envisioned a revival of the community land centered around gardening and sustainable farming. The first order of business for us was to reclaim the land. The grant allocated us $1,000 to build a sustainable plan for a garden. The clearing cost us $6,500, fortunately the grant also allowed for compensation of our team's project coordinator and manager. So we tapped into the team's compensation and put it all towards farm reclamation project. The result is the picture above, where we were able to reclaimed about 1.25 acre of land back. The empty drained pool was also covered as a safety for children and can now be used as additional growing plot. The pond, is also now accessible, but for now, it will remain algae covered until additional fundings can be found to help clean and divert the incoming pollution flow.
We are deeply thankful for the KBR grant (2021 - 2022) for allowing us to revive and begin redirecting the course of our community again.