Greater Houston Urban Garden Festival

For Immediate Release
Houston, TX, August 21, 2010. Divine Leaders Inc., an educational and community service nonprofit organization, will host The Greater Houston Urban Garden Festival.
This is a celebration for many wonderful reasons! First, it will pay homage to the Honorable Marcus Mosiah Garvey, who was born on August 17, 2010, and whose Universal Negro Improvement Association’s “Africa for the Africans” campaign gave Black people in the early 1900’s hope for a better tomorrow. In addition to that, we will also be celebrating the community’s involvement with The Marcus Garvey Liberation Garden and Food Coop Program via multiple community awareness and family activities. The event will include live performances and presentations from local independent music and visual artists of varying genres.

This event will also mark the beginning of The Ujamaa Marketplace. The Ujamaa Marketplace will demonstrate cooperative economics by featuring local vendors for festival goers to patronize as well as learn more about vendor’s respective businesses and associated organizations. To find out more information to become a vendor, please contact Nykeba Griffin at 832-788-4332 or www.twitter.com/abimbola80.

Your attendance, participation and support of this event would be greatly appreciated. If you need more general information about this event feel free to contact Cavanaugh Nweze at 832-262-8019 or www.twitter.com/DivineLeaders.

http://www.divineleaders.blogspot.com/

First Annual Greater Houston Urban Garden Festival

Dear Community Member,

Divine Leaders Incorporated is proud to host The First Annual Marcus Garvey Liberation Garden Festival. This historic event will be take place at our garden on Saturday, August 21, 2010 on two and a half acres of land located immediately to the right of The Shrine Cultural and Event Center.

This is a celebration for many wonderful reasons! First, we will pay homage to the Honorable Marcus Mosiah Garvey, who was born on August 17, 2010, and whose Universal Negro Improvement Association’s “Africa for the Africans” campaign gave Black people hope for a better tomorrow in the early 1900’s. In addition, we will also be celebrating the community’s involvement with this project via multiple community awareness activities, including live performances and presentations from local independent music and visual artists of varying genres.

Other community awareness activities will include presentations on healthy lifestyles and emergency preparedness strategies for families. The intent will be to encourage parents and children to make transitions from a less stressful way of living to a more sustainable, healthy way of living. To aid in the reaching of this goal, an emphasis will be placed on creating an awareness, preparation, and evacuation plan for any disaster – manmade or natural.

Moreover, this event will also mark the beginning of The Ujamaa Marketplace. Ujamaa is a Kiswahili word, which means “cooperative economics.” The Ujamaa Marketplace will demonstrate cooperative economics by featuring local vendors for festival-goers from which to patronize as well as opportunities to promote their respective businesses and associated organizations.

Lastly, this event is to celebrate and raise funds for the harvests of the Marcus Garvey Liberation Garden. This is the first full season the garden that has flourished enough to benefit the community through the growth and distribution of organic foods to both the volunteers who assisted as well as to local community households in need.

Your attendance, participation, and support of this event would be greatly appreciated.

Yours in the struggle,

Cavanaugh Nweze

Divine Leaders Inc., COO

Now Accepting Nominations for Marcus Garvey Liberation Food Coop Program Reciepients

Peace Family!

I wish you all blessings wherever you may be at this moment. This is a very important and exciting time for us at Divine Leaders Inc. This is because of the success of our latest program, The Marcus Garvey Liberation Garden and Food Coop Program. So this blog entry is to update you on the continued success of the Garden and beginning of the Food Coop Program.

On the day of March 6, 2010, we planted a numerous seeds in the garden after our Groundbreaking Ceremony. We planted corn, roma tomatoes, beefsteak tomatoes, green beans, broccoli, kale, cucumbers, squash, watermelons, oregano, peppermint, and rosemary. For some reason the herbs we planted did not do to well, but we still do have all the vegetables mentioned above flourishing in the garden as you can see in the pictures below. As time has passed we have discovered a wild berry tree in the back of the garden, planted a nectarine tree, and added seven banana trees. Well now it is time to start reaping the fruits of our labor.

The first crop that was ready to be harvested was Kale. We picked it and distributed between out most dedicated volunteers. Now our squash, tomatoes, and green beans are maturing. In honor of the ancestors and all of who have helped us along the way, we would like to announce that we are now accepting nominations for five poverty stricken households that will start to receive fresh veggies as we pick them.

For a household to qualify they must house at lease one child, or one elderly citizen of our community. Initially, we only planned on opening this program to senior citizens and single-parent households living under the poverty line in the Southeast area of Houston, TX. Now we are announcing that this program is open to all poverty stricken households in Southeast Houston, TX.

The nomination process is a little different. We wanted this process to demonstrate how important we feel the words of the elders are. So the only way to be nominated for this part of the program is to be nominated by an elder. Any elder (50 years or older) of the community can contact Cavanaugh Nweze via email (cnweze@hotmail.com), phone (832-262-8019), or in person. If an email is sent please be sure to include “Nomination for MGLG” in the subject line of the email.

After an individual has been nominated they must complete an evaluation form. Then their after the evaluation they will be notified if they will be one of the five households receiving fresh fruits and vegetables.

So please spread the word!!! Nominate a household!!! Or simply enjoy the pictures....

A Successful Groundbreaking

Peace!

We are continuing to make progress at The Marcus Garvey Liberation Garden. Last Sunday was especially important because it marked our Groundbreaking Ceremony. It is truly a blessing to be able to see this idea blossoming into a great institution within our community! We want to give a tremendous amount of thanks to our sponsors; Jaramogi Kimathi, Sankofa Naturals, Melodrama Boutique, Clyde and Kamaria McNeil, Cheryl Thomas, and Jaha Kadirifu. Also, we would like to thank Baba Ifalade for the pouring of libation and Cd. Aswad Walker for his beautiful blessing and an endless amount of support. We have a very special acknowledgement of Turk Photography (http://www.capturedbyturk.com/) for all the wonderful photos. Last but not least, we want to thank you!!! Please continue showing the huge amount of support we have been receiving. If you would like to know how you can help us be even more successful, please contact Cavanaugh Nweze @ 832-262-8019 or cnweze@hotmail.com.

Thanks and Enjoy the Pictures!!!