As Long Beach plans for the long-awaited Drake-Chavez Park Connection, an urban farm and education center that provides opportunities to disadvantaged youth is in danger of losing its space.
Sowing Seeds of Change, Long Beach’s nonprofit and farm-focused education center, sits right in the middle of the two parks, and relocation is imminent in order for the City to move forward.
But Executive Director and Co-founder Lindsay Smith said the nonprofit has been suddenly left out of these conversations, leaving them to suspect the worst.
“This has probably been my biggest fear,” Smith told the Signal Tribune on Oct. 22. “Just picking up and moving, that’s not realistic for us, for a small nonprofit, to start over.”
Sowing Seeds of Change was founded in 2019, and was never meant to exist in planter boxes sat atop concrete. The City offered them a temporary space in a parking lot while they prepared for an expansion of the two surrounding parks, assuring Smith their nonprofit would have a future place in the new green space.
Following hundreds of thousands of dollars and countless hours invested over the last six years, the nonprofit has worked towards its mission of empowering “transition-age youth with disabilities and foster youth to cultivate a thriving future through vocational training in sustainable agriculture, leadership development, and community engagement.”
Last year alone, Sowing Seeds of Change hired 10 transition-age youth with disabilities or foster youth as interns, had 30 students from similar backgrounds in their various programs and taught 12 summer camp attendees. Over 12,000 families were fed fresh produce through their food distribution in 2024, according to the nonprofit’s impact report.
Earlier this month, the City held two public meetings about the Drake-Chavez Park connection. Through a friend attending the meeting, Smith found out that Sowing Seeds of Change was no longer included in the City’s plans.
“I’m very fearful about what’s going to happen, and even if they don’t start the construction now, I just want to ensure that we are considered in this design, that we have a space in the future designs they’re presenting to the community,” Smith said. “They’re not even identifying us on the maps that they’re showing everybody.”
A representative from Public Works told the Signal Tribune in an email on Oct. 23 that they “intentionally did not include any future park designs or plans for specific sites” since they are still in the feedback gathering stage. They went on to say that there is currently no design or plans for where Sowing Seeds of Change is currently located.
“Sowing Seeds of Change is invited and encouraged to provide their feedback on programming priorities at the Drake Chavez Connection and Master Planning projects. The City values the organization’s contributions to the community and looks forward to continued conversations to ensure their input is reflected as the park design process moves forward and funding for construction is acquired,” Public Works said in an email to the Signal Tribune.
How Did We Get Here?
In 2020, when Long Beach began planning the connection of Cesar Chavez and Drake Park, Sowing Seeds of Change was an integral part of those plans. Its current headquarters, with dozens of raised beds atop mulch-covered concrete, tomato vines growing along chain link fences and makeshift containers bursting with greenery, was only supposed to be phase one of the nonprofit.
Once the parks were connected, City documents from 2020 show that Sowing Seeds of Change was meant to own a parcel of land within the new park. The next phase was put on hold once the COVID-19 pandemic started, claiming much of Long Beach’s funds.
Now all the City employees they worked with years ago have moved onto other cities or roles, making it difficult to follow up with those plans, Smith said. For the last six years, they’ve been waiting to move into an in-ground garden. “We’re at our limit” in the current parking lot, Smith said.
The goal of the Chavez-Drake Park connection is to increase much-needed green space in the west by uprooting and replacing yards of concrete and industrial buildings. Some of these buildings will remain and may become city offices, since removing all of the concrete would be expensive, according to planning documents from the City.
However, one of those concrete lots is where Sowing Seeds of Change has made an impact in thousands of people’s lives, through free produce, internships, cooking workshops, summer gardening classes and more.
When asked on Oct. 23 if the City is keeping the original plan to move Sowing Seeds of Change to an in-ground phase two location as planned in 2020, Public Works responded, “the City is conducting extensive outreach with local organizations and the broader community to ensure the design reflects community priorities.” The City said they have been actively engaged with groups “such as Sowing Seeds of Change and look forward to continued, collaborative dialogue as the project moves forward.”
However, Smith says it’s been difficult to get a response from the City.
Smith shared that two months ago, more than 20 Public Works employees unexpectedly showed up to the nonprofit in the middle of a workshop and requested a tour of the facility. She shared her fears of being left out of conversations of the expansion, gave her contact information to multiple employees and asked to be included in future meetings.
“They took my contact and still did not reach out to me,” Smith said.
Part of the Drake-Chavez connection plan includes the realignment of Shoreline Drive and the relocation of Shoemaker Bridge, so even before the parks are connected, Sowing Seeds of Change would have to move as they would be blocked by ongoing construction. Smith is hoping that move will be from phase one to phase two of the original plan promised to them by the City.
“If you look at our area, there’s no grocery stores, and especially with all the stuff that’s happening with SNAP and all that stuff going away, food access is going to be more and more critical and I don’t know why they would want to see something like this go away,” Smith said.
Smith says all she wants is for their nonprofit to be considered in the plans moving forward, and for the farm to be included in future layouts.
What You Can Do:
- Take the Survey: The City of Long Beach has released a survey to hear resident’s thoughts on the Chavez-Drake Park connection. Sowing Seeds of Change is asking people to take the survey and tell the City they want the nonprofit to stay and to be made a part of the future plans. The survey will be open until Jan. 17.
