City Slicker Farms

Alison Fischman, in whose capable (and sometimes dirty) hands our Backyard Garden Program has rested for the past four years, is leaving City Slicker Farms. Alison has left a deep and lasting impact on our organization, forming meaningful relationships with the Backyard Gardeners with whom she worked and building the program into the success it is today. Under her tenure, approximately 145 gardens have been built across West Oakland, from Njelela Kwamilele's ever-expanding, eight-bed garden; to the apartments at MORH 1, where the garden helps children in the after-school program learn about healthy food; to Rosa Oliva's garden outside her restarauant, Tamales la Oaxaqueña.

The Backyard Garden program, which now serves over 350 families, individuals, and institutions, blossomed under Alison's leadership. She built up the program's development, evaluation, and systems, as well as implemented a reliable system for building garden beds, including installing a woodshop and continuously improving the box design. She was constantly looking for ways to make the program better. After taking an extensive course in lead safety protocol, she revamped City Slicker Farms' approach to lead in the soil of Backyard Gardeners. She organized field trips and workshops to bring the Backyard Garden community together.

The mentorship of new Backyard Gardeners was another element of the program to which Alison devoted much attention. She revamped how mentors are trained in order to make their interactions with gardeners mutually fulfilling, led hands-on meetings to teach mentors new skills, and cultivated Backyard Gardeners to become mentors themselves.

But nowhere was Alison's dedication to and passion for her work more evident than in her relationships with Backyard Gardeners. Despite working with a community of hundreds of gardeners and their families, she knew everyone by name. She was always willing to go the extra mile to help a Backyard Gardener out, stopping in to give advice when their mentor was unavailable, building a new box when theirs started to wear down, and even watering their garden when they were on vacation.

Alison plans to go back to school for midwifery. We couldn't be more excited for her! Thank you for everything you've given to this program, Alison -- you'll be sorely missed!