Two acres of a once-vacant dirt lot on Sixth and Garfield streets near the Downtown campus are now bustling with activity, showcasing community involvement through a project called Valley of the Sunflowers.
The lot, which in August was nothing more than a barren field of dirt, sits across from a lush community garden grow house, where the idea emerged to turn the nearby vacant land into a field of sunflowers.
Kenny Barrett, a former ASU student who received a bachelor’s degree in marketing from the W.P. Carey School of Business, founded the Valley of the Sunflowers project. Barrett lived in the home across from the lot before it became a grow house three years ago.
“I remember looking out the window at the vacant lot … Often I would just think of ideas to do with it,” Barrett said.
Valley of the Sunflowers plans to donate the harvested sunflower seed oil, which will be extractable after December’s harvest, for students at Phoenix Union Bioscience High School to create biodiesel fuel for a car. The students have been going on field trips to the lot to help plant the seeds throughout the school weeks.
Braden Kay, an ASU sustainability doctorate student, was working at the high school when he began volunteering at the grow house. Through his relationship with the school, Kay was able to come up with the idea of using the sunflower seed oil for the students’ biodiesel fuel project.
“Sunflowers aren’t necessarily the solution for energy production in Phoenix, but this is a great opportunity to start conversations about what should our energy futures be,” Kay said. “Sunflowers are a super inspiring way to start that conversation. That’s the brilliance of what Kenny did here. He found a symbol that could really represent Phoenix in the sunflower.”
The project is an extension of Adaptive Reuse for Temporary Space, a community development program launched this past spring. As part of the program, the grow house harvests an assortment of crops for the Downtown Phoenix Public Market on Pierce Street and Central Avenue and another vacant lot project on Roosevelt Avenue, which is now the site for various events held every first and third Fridays.
Zie Weathers, a sophomore at the Bioscience High School, even volunteers on the weekends.
Sho Kroeger, a teacher at the high school working with the students on the biodiesel fuel project, said many of her students volunteer at the grow house as well.
“The students are really stepping up and doing a lot of projects on their own time,” she said.
The community wanted a renovation of the lot for some time — something with shade, a garden and something to benefit the kids in the area, both Barrett and Kay said.
“It’s the desire of the community to activate this space. People just want to see something happen with vacant lots,” Barrett said.
Reach the reporter at kmmandev@asu.edu
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