It's official: Valley Stream's first community garden is up and growing

What was once a vacant patch of village-owned land near East Hawthorne Avenue is now teeming with promise—and eventually—plants.

Last weekend, local officials and residents gathered to celebrate Valley Stream’s first public community garden, the result of a yearslong grassroots effort to build a greener, more self-reliant future in this increasingly connected suburban village.

“It’s a place where community grows, quite literally,” said David Sabatino, one of the project’s earliest champions. “We saw other neighborhoods coming together around these spaces, and we knew we could make it happen here too.”

Built through a coalition of local and regional partners—including the nonprofit ReWild Long Island, the office of Assemblywoman Michaelle Solages, and the Village of Valley Stream—the garden is part food source, part living classroom for students, part ecological refuge and preservation space, and not least a monument to the joys of growing one’s own delectable veggies and fruits.

Raju Rajan, cofounder of ReWild, describes the garden’s design as rooted in the “CROWN” principles—an acronym that encapsulates the group’s philosophy: Compost, Refuse, Organic, Water-wise, and Native.

“We’re not just growing food,” Rajan said. “We’re recycling kitchen and yard waste into soil. We’re refusing wasteful plastic and growing organic produce. We’re conserving water through a bioswale that captures rain runoff and recharges our aquifer. And most critically, we’re planting native species—deep-rooted, resilient plants that invite pollinators and sustain biodiversity.”

Each bed is assigned either to an individual grower or to a communal plot whose harvest will be donated to families in need. ReWild plans to install smart irrigation systems to maximize water efficiency. For now, volunteers hand-water rows of produce with hoses coiled around the fencing.

The garden’s placement was strategic. Rain runoff from an adjacent wall now funnels into a gently sloped basin planted with native grasses and wildflowers, transforming what was once a drainage problem into an ecological asset.

It didn’t happen overnight.

Sabatino and a small group of advocates began seeking space for the project nearly five years ago. They consulted with Cornell Cooperative Extension, applied for state grants, and spent months lobbying the village for land.

When they first laid eyes on the lot, it was overgrown and forgotten.

“It was blighted,” Sabatino recalled. “But we said, if this is what we’ve got, we’re going to make it work.”

They did. With ReWild spearheading design and outreach, the garden secured donations for fencing, infrastructure, and educational signage.

Local high school and middle school students will help maintain the plots while learning about sustainable agriculture and native ecosystems.

“This isn’t just about vegetables,” said Rajan. “It’s about building climate resilience. It’s about empowering communities to grow, literally and figuratively.”

And the work isn’t finished.

“We’re going to need continued support—grants, donations, garden parties, whatever it takes,” said Michaelle Solages, whose office marshaled for the seed money to launch the project. “This is just the beginning of the journey.”

The garden isn’t expected to come to its full bloom until another two to three years, but in due time it is destined to flourish into a well-designed green space in quiet defiance against climate uncertainty, food insecurity, and even disconnection.

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