August ’21 – Library-Garden Exchange, Garage-top Garden Built with DownCity Design

The summer of 2021 marked PPL’s Community Garden being built atop our garage, thanks to a LORI (Library of Rhode Island) grant through the Rhode Island Office of Library and Information Services, and our project partner DownCity Design. PPL’s Library Garden Exchange will create a bridge between gardening and literacy practices, specifically among immigrant and refugee communities in Providence. We surveyed immigrant communities, for whom English is not their native language, to understand what literacy items they would be interested in reading in their native language in the areas of STEM, environment, gardening, etc. This information was used to expand our non-English materials at PPL in addition to creating packages of books and other gardening and literacy materials in non-English languages to share with our community partners who serve immigrant communities.