Students: Cate Adams, Emma Clopton, Isabelle Spirk, and Julie Wright

PROMPT #1:

• Identify the three specific stakeholder groups most impacted by your project. For each one, go through the five elements of framework #2 and identify different answers for each group. In other words, if you’re telling your story to stakeholder group #1 (let’s say, middle school students), what is the context that would be most meaningful to that group? What is the catalyst most meaningful to that group? And so on.

Stakeholders: 

• Southside Bethlehem Community 
  • Environmental health has been a concern voiced by residents in Southside Bethlehem, and the Southside Permaculture Park is ready to serve the community by providing a greenspace and place to learn about ecosystem health, play, and relax. Our team understands that the relationship between Lehigh U and Southside Bethlehem is strained, though we envision that through extending our hands to the community and meeting community needs with our space, we can repair some of this relationship. However, similarly to many other greenspaces in Bethlehem, our land comes with its many challenges. For one, our park is on a slope, therefore we experience a lot of issues with urban runoff. Every day brings something new, whether it’s a piece of trash or shards of glass and broken pipe that is buried several inches into the ground. This has gravely impacted the health of our soil, causing us to really focus on composting and doing as much general maintenance as possible to keep this space clean and flourishing. Using permaculture as a design experimentally, we are figuring out how we can properly serve the community and serve as a model for other gardens. We have lots of work to do, but we are excited to see what will become of the space when it is finished. 
• Lehigh U students
  • With Lehigh U being planted in a crowded urban pocket, there is a need for greenspaces riddled throughout the South Bethlehem area. Cities face a phenomenon called “urban heat islanding” that leads to poor air quality and a myriad of long-term complications for community and environmental health.  Additionally, students often do not have an outlet to give back to the local community and local environment. The City of Bethlehem has been transitioning to become a much greener city, investing in community gardens, the Greenway Beltline, etc. So, how do we fit in? The Southside Permaculture Park is dedicated to strengthening ecosystem health and cultivating relationships to empower the Southside Bethlehem community and Lehigh students. Currently, we are working to build up the aesthetics of our space so that we truly have a community resource. This also means involving Lehigh students as part of building relationships with the community, so we are currently hosting work days with students and spreading the philosophy of permaculture and sustainability. We are working with organizations such as Community Growers and the Eco Reps program to build sustainable habits and conscientious mindsets within the student body, and use our park as a means for engaging students to live sustainably and connect with their environment. Our project will open students to a world of sustainability, environmental and community health, and understanding of the importance of giving back to your community. 
• Lehigh U administration 
  • Lehigh and Southside Bethlehem have had a strained relationship, though Lehigh University aims to be more ingrained into the community. This is mostly due to the gentrification and expansion of Lehigh’s campus, pushing the Bethlehem community away. Those who still are amongst the Bethlehem community now have a lot of mistrust in the university, as it has made them feel alienated and entirely unwelcome. However, through initiatives like the Strategic Plan, the CSO, and classes in community-based participatory research, Lehigh is making some effort to extend its hand to South Bethlehem. These plans are still not fully active yet, therefore the Southside Permaculture Park is facing barriers with allowing community members to use the space at its full capacity. By using the space we have and by extending our hands to other environmental and community projects, we are gauging the needs of the community and how the park plays a role in bridging the gap between the community and Southside Bethlehem. 

 

PROMPT #2:

• From the two story frameworks, CHOOSE ONE of them. Doesn’t matter which – choose the one that speaks you to more, or choose randomly. Once you’ve chosen one framework, ignore the other one for this prompt.
• As a team, write the story of your project (as it exists today), using the five story elements in the order in which they are given, #1 through #5. Each element’s section should consist of at least 2-3 carefully constructed sentences. 
• The result should be a coherent, beginning-middle-end story about your project which someone of reasonable intelligence who is unfamiliar with your project can follow and understand, and more importantly, be inspired by. The blog entry should be written as a text-based story, not a bulleted list. You should write it as a first-person plural story – in other words, the character is “we,” the project team.
• Talk it through as a team. Does it make sense? Does it say everything you want and need it to say? If this were the essential structure of your Fall presentations (stretched out to 7 minutes), would it be successful and would the referees know what you were talking about and why? 

Framework #2: 

1.Context – bring us into the world. Defines what is happening and what needs to happen.

2.Catalyst – what changes? What is changing?

3.Complication – what is the obstacle to change?

4.Change – what is the transformation that occurs?

5.Consequence – what is the resolution and where are we now?

 

There is an increasing call to action for investing in urban greenspaces. Urban areas are major polluters, hurting both people and the planet. Cities face a phenomenon called “urban heat islanding” that leads to poor air quality and a myriad of long-term complications for community and environmental health. The City of Bethlehem has been transitioning to become a much greener city, investing in community gardens, the Greenway Beltline, etc. This has been and will continue to be transformative for the Bethlehem community. So, how do we fit in? 

 

The Southside Permaculture Park is a ¼ acre plot of land that is a food-yielding greenspace and serves to cultivate relationships within the South Bethlehem community. We are nestled within the residential regions of the Southside, and serve as a sustainable oasis within an urban pocket. At the park, we implement the novel “permaculture philosophy” which is a holistic design philosophy that mimics natural relationships within the environment and leverages Indigenous knowledge to create self-regulating systems. The park is a space for the community to learn, grow, play, and indulge from. 

 

We are playing a part in the role of improving the health of the Southside. Our project emphasizes the importance of greenspace for community health. You are not able to obtain a healthy community if you do not have a healthy surrounding environment. At the park, our work focuses on replenishing the soil health of our small land, planting native perennials that will feed humans and the pollinators, and creating a beautiful space that also contributes to bettering the health of Bethlehem’s air.

 

None of this work comes without barriers. Being in an urban hub comes with its many challenges. For one, our park is on a slope, therefore we experience a lot of issues with urban runoff. Every day brings something new, whether it’s a piece of trash or shards of glass and broken pipe that is buried several inches into the ground. This has gravely impacted the health of our soil, causing us to really focus on composting and doing as much general maintenance as possible to keep this space clean and flourishing. Additionally, being a Lehigh U operated project, we are unable to maximize our full potential to help the Bethlehem community. This is majorly due to the idea that any non-affiliated person that steps on to Lehigh property is considered a liability. The team has been working on figuring out the best way to navigate this issue and truly utilize our space and project to its full potential. 

 

The 2023 team has made major strides in advancing and reshaping the project and park space. We have shifted the project’s focus from being a food security project to a community health based project, reeling in the importance of environmental health and investing in regenerative practices to create healthy communities. Green space is vital for communities to be resilient, safer, and more beautiful. We have removed the years of neglected waste abandoned on our land and are working on aesthetics to truly make this a safe, accessible, and enchanting environment for everyone to enjoy. 

 

Looking forward, we envision that the Southside Permaculture Park will be a flourishing green space that provides for both the Southside and Lehigh communities. Teams will continue to practice permaculture, but also recognize the barriers and consequences that come with the philosophy. We will be a sustainable project that encourages people, cities, communities, institutions, etc. to invest in their local environments and transform the health of these areas to better the health of both people and the Earth. These little sustainable oases will assist in reversing the effects of climate change and make places much more beautiful and resilient. The Southside Permaculture Park will be an influencer and change agent for years to come within and out of the Lehigh Valley.