While in Red Hook last Saturday to see my son’s band at the Liberty Heights Tap Room. my husband and I walked over to nearby Coffey Park, an old Parks Department baseball field that has been transformed into an organic garden.

We introduced ourselves to Ian Marvy, the Director of Added Value, the group that is responsible for bringing farming and a thriving farmer’s market to Red Hook.

I told Ian that I am Meg Fidler’s first cousin. Meg is executive director of the Petra Foundation, a group dedicated to honoring "unsung
individuals making distinctive contributions to the rights, autonomy
and dignity of others." Each year, through a national search
and nomination process, the Petra Foundation recognizes such leaders. Petra selected Ian and his partner, Michael Hurwitz, as Petra Fellows in 2004, recognizing their work with youth in Red Hook.

On this unbearably humid Saturday, we watch as a small group of young people shovel dirt, push wheel barrows, and weed in the garden. It was a sight to behold.

According to the website, Added Value’s mission is to promote "the sustainable development of Red Hook by nurturing a new generation of young leaders." They run programs that help kids develop new skills and participate in a  socially responsible urban farming experience.

For the past three years, Added Value has trained more than 50 young people, founded the Red Hook Farmer’s Market, and helped to revitalize Coffey Park. The organization’s sucess is partly due to savvy community organizing and Added Value’s effort to create a Community Advisory Council representing 30 local, regional and national institutions that support ghdif work to improve the neighborhood by creating youth leaders.

Added Value has many components: Herban Solutions, a market gardening business,  Digital Horizons, media literacy and multi-media initiative, and Project R.E.A.L, an environmental justice program.

Participating kids work seventeen hours each week in the gardens, which is right across the street from the pier that will soon be made into an Ikea box store. They learn to nurture plants, sell at the farmer’s market and work on Added Value’s web site. Participants receive a generous stipend while learning invaluable skills.

We spoke with Ian, an open, soft-spoken man, who clearly knows a great deal about farming and organizing successful programs that really address the needs of the Red Hook community. He lives nearby and is quietly passionate about the environment and the people of Red Hook.

Ian showed us around the garden. It really is an amazing thing. Planted  on top of an old Parks’ Department baseball field, they grow "fast crops," that can be harvested several times a year like lettuce and tomatoes. They use  special hoses made out of a porous material that water soaks through. There’s lots of composte and mulched trees mixed into the soil. 

The former baseball field in a rather stark urban setting has that nice/stinky smell of good dirt with compost:  that wholesome, farm-y frangrance you don’t expect to find in Brooklyn.