Approximately five miles west of Center Ccity Philadelphia, Bartram’s Garden spans across 45-acres along the Schuylkill River. The Garden has a long and rich history that played a role in making Philadelphia a focal point for academics in Colonial America. Bartram’s Garden, eponymous of John Bartram, the man who purchased 102 acres of land in 1728 from Swedish settlers and began a long and successful career in cataloguing North American plants, continues its endeavors in agriculture and horticulture today . Additionally, the Garden recently created numerous programs that focus on reaching out to the urban public to teach them about growing healthy, sustainable food. Similarly to John Bartram’s tireless efforts in discovering and cataloguing new North American plants, modern day Bartram’s Garden works just as hard to ensure that Bartram’s curious and determined spirit lives on through their outreach programs.
According to Bartram’s Garden website-www.bartramgarden.org-Bartram’s family created the John Bartram Association . They, along with the City of Philadelphia Department of Parks and Recreation, oversee the activities planned at the Garden. These educational activities range from academic field trips, homeschooler days-where homeschooled students meet to learn about botany, colonial cooking, navigation, etc-family discovery day, and even children’s birthday parties.
Along with the listed events the Garden hosts, they also run several programs, in conjunction with other organizations, geared towards offering a helping hand to the community members around them. Their premiere program is called The Community Farm and Food Resource Center (Farm) and, according to their Partnership Project Overview, it “is a partnership between the John Bartram Association, Agatston Urban Nutrition Initiative (AUNI) of the University of Pennsylvania, the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society (PHS), [and] the Philadelphia Department of Parks and Recreation.” As part of the program, local high school students work on a 2-acre farm where they grow their own vegetables. They then sell the vegetables at a farmer’s market near the Garden. This program offers urban students the opportunity to experience a lifestyle that they would not normally encounter living in Philadelphia. It teaches them responsibility through maintaining a routine work ethic on the farm and at the farmer’s market.
In 2012, The Historical Society of Pennsylvania, in recognizing the Farm program created by the John Bartram Association, awarded to the Garden the History in Pennsylvania Award for its “excellence and innovation in the history and heritage community.” The Historical Society, through its History Affiliates Program, aims to help support “small and mid-sized history and heritage organizations in Southeastern Pennsylvania.” In doing so, they allow for organizations, such as Bartram’s Garden, to be brought into public light.