PROVIDENCE – Under blue skies and bright sunlight, more than 40 neighbors, growers, volunteers and supporters gathered in the West End on April 19 to celebrate the opening of a new community garden on Parade Street, part of the Sankofa initiative launched by West Elmwood Housing Development Corporation.

Sankofa is a Ghanian word that means: “go back and get it.” The newly created “crop” of about 20 raised beds is an effort to use “our traditions to build a stronger West End through healthy foods, economic opportunity and neighbor-to-neighbor relationships,” according to organizers.

Rachel Newman Greene, director of Partnerships and Community Projects at the nationally recognized West Elmwood community development corporation, explained that the vision of the project was to make the West End a healthier place by improving access to healthy food for a low-income population. Greene said that plans are for some 10,000 square feet of community gardens to be developed as a way of “cultivating land, lives and community.”

Beyond growing vegetables, the community gardens look to grow community cohesion as a way to make people healthier.

The initiative is one of nine projects in low-income neighborhoods in Rhode Island funded by the R.I. Department of Health’s Comprehensive Health Equity and Wellness Center, or CHEW, according to Mia Patriarca, the program’s project officer. The goal of the program is to invest in ways to address the root causes of health disparities that make life expectancy shorter for residents of poor neighborhoods. Under CHEW, West Elmwood Housing will receive $100,000 per year for the next three years.

Angela Ankoma, chair of the advisory committee for Sankofa, with her two small children next to her, spoke about her experiences growing up in a refugee family in the West End.

Ankoma talked about the importance of the Sankofa project to her and other families like hers, who are now making the West End their home after being resettled from Africa, Asia, the Middle East – many of whom have been forced to leave their homes and cannot return.

Sen. Juan Pichardo spoke in glowing terms about the effort, although no state funds are being committed to this kind of investment in health outcomes by the R.I. General Assembly.

Several Providence mayoral candidates spoke favorably about the potential positive impact that the CHEW initiative will have on Providence. All the candidates attending said that they were committed to such efforts to help build more healthy places in Providence, using the CHEW funds to leverage other opportunities.

Such new funding opportunities are currently being explored by the city’s office of Sustainability, led by Sheila Dormody, and by the office of Healthy Communities, represented by Ellen Cynar. Both offices were created under Providence Mayor Angel Taveras’ leadership.

The event brought to mind an old saying on signage for a bakery on Weybosset Street: “As you ramble through life, brother, whatever be your goal, keep your eye upon the doughnut, and not upon the hole.”