\u201cIf you build it they will come\u201d may very well be one of the most overused phrases ever, since first surfacing in the 1989 film \u201cField of Dreams\u201d; but in the case of SMARTS Farm, a 10,000-square-foot area located on a former junk parking lot on the northeast corner of 15th and F streets Downtown, it couldn\u2019t be more apropos.<\/p>\n Just steps away from the Downtown Police headquarters, this bastion of lush green agriculture and splashes of bright color seems to explode the visual senses of everyone who enters this place. Previously surrounded by broken down motorhomes, cars, rampant homelessness, abandoned buildings and transient housing, this space is now a thriving hands-on community garden and educational center.<\/p>\n Launched in May of 2013, SMARTS Farm is a project of the 501(c)(3) nonprofit Humane Smarts<\/a>, the vision of founder and CEO Susan \u201cSusie\u201d Madden Lankford, an author, photojournalist and activist who has spent decades documenting the lives of the homeless and women \u201cin the system\u201d and their children, many of whom end up in Juvenile Hall.<\/p>\n Lankford has written three books, filmed one documentary and is currently working on another. She refers to her body of work up until now as the \u201cawareness phase,\u201d and SMARTS Farm the \u201csolution phase.\u201d<\/p>\n And while what they provide the community is much too vast to capture in a feature article \u2014 one must actually go there to completely grasp all they are doing \u2014 in summary, SMART Farm\u2019s solutions come by way of educating the less fortunate, the disadvantaged, and the underserved, while welcoming those who aren\u2019t in need but want to experience the magic that happens behind the big chain link fence.<\/p>\n \u201cAnyone who feels lonely or stressed, this is a place where they can all come together,\u201d Lankford said.<\/p>\n Lankford\u2019s daughter Polly Lankford Smith is executive director of Humane Smarts. Smith \u2014 also a photojournalist and a graphic artist \u2014 has a degree in psychology from San Diego State. She spent two years interning alongside her mother at Juvenile Hall while completing her degree and the process was life changing for both women and brought them to where they are today.<\/p>\n SMARTS Farm\u2019s mission statement and branding phrase is \u201cA place where hearts can grow and minds thrive.\u201d<\/p>\n With that as a goal, Lankford and her staff primarily seek to reach the children that often get lost in the system or move from place to place as the child of displaced parents. They want to show them that there is a whole other world outside the confines of their transient housing \u2014 a place where they can play, learn, lead and grow; like the seeds they plant in SMARTS Farm\u2019s many wooden planter boxes.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re trying to bring the two [hearts and minds] together so that children can really develop that level of feeling,\u201d Lankford said.<\/p>\n Their community garden currently has 40 planter boxes \u2014\u00a0which come in two sizes, 4 x 4 x 8 and 4 x 4 x 4 and two feet of soil \u2014 leased out for the year with a 10-person waiting list. Gardeners are growing flowers, vegetables, amaranth, corn and more. In addition, they have up to 25 more planter boxes that are split between SMARTS Farm\u2019s own production and the transient children that visit.<\/p>\n Oklahoma native Dr. Connie Joy is director of education and she drives program development and execution at SMARTS Farm. Current and past programs range from gardening, self-esteem lessons, photography, arts and crafts, culinary arts and sampling, composting, team building, leadership, and puppetry.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is the enrichment piece that so many of these Title One kids miss out on, so we serve it here,\u201d Joy said.<\/p>\n In the gardening and sampling classes, the children get to taste, smell, touch and feel vegetables they\u2019ve never experienced before. A recent class taught the kids about the process of a cucumber \u2014 from seed to harvest and even becoming a pickle; many had no idea the two were related. Still another class showed the children the full cycle of a chrysalis into a Monarch butterfly.<\/p>\n \u201cWe learn so much from these kids because they are unspoiled and have a thirst for learning,\u201d Lankford said. \u201cYou want to see empathy develop with children? It can happen with an insect.\u201d<\/p>\n Their formula is working; SMARTS Farm has already serviced over 300 children in the past year, something Lankford is very proud of, but she wants more.<\/p>\n \u201cFrankly we want more kids to be coming from some of these areas in here,\u201d Lankford said as she gestured to the surrounding neighborhood. \u201cWe\u2019re in the most densely populated service provider area and it\u2019s hard for us to be able to get kids to come to us, because the various providers don\u2019t provide an individual to escort the kids.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAs you look out across through here \u2014 you look at all those apartments and all those windows \u2014 we\u2019re looking for two, three, four dozen kids and you can\u2019t tell me they\u2019re not out there,\u201d Joy said, also gesturing to the neighboring housing areas. \u201cWe are right in the middle of the mecca. We want them to come.\u201d<\/p>\n Accessing transportation for their target audience, which would bring the children to SMARTS Farm, has been Lankford\u2019s greatest challenge. Transient housing centers like Father Joe\u2019s, just two blocks away, don\u2019t have money for children\u2019s programs, stifling the opportunity for transportation or even allowing an adult walk the children to SMARTS Farm.<\/p>\n Unfortunately, Lankford\u2019s liability insurance doesn\u2019t allow her to offer transportation. It\u2019s a challenge that Lankford hopes to overcome with input from the greater community.<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s a stop gap that we have that we have to try to figure out,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd we\u2019re working very very hard at figuring that out. But we don\u2019t have any limits as far as with children. The kids can learn as much as they want to learn, they can be here as much as they want to be here.\u201d<\/p>\n The YWCA has the ability to transport 14 children, and they do, each Tuesday and Thursday.<\/p>\n But SMARTS Farm isn\u2019t just for children or the disadvantaged; plenty of thriving Downtown urban dwellers are now also taking advantage of its personal gardens, which are leased for a year at a time.<\/p>\n Lankford said some of their clients had never ventured far from their burgeoning high-rises, especially into this easternmost area of East Village. Now those same people ride their bikes over, tend to their gardens, bring a lunch or just hang out at one of the picnic tables at what has become a soothing escape from the endless blocks of construction and development in each direction.<\/p>\n \u201cEveryone leaves their baggage at the fence,\u201d Smith said.<\/p>\n![\"Director](\"https:\/\/sandiegodowntownnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/IMG_7329_MHWEB.jpg\")
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