Contemporary Conversations with Karen Washington and Jabari S. Walker

Urban Farming, Sustainability and the Environment.

This program is offered in-person and via live streaming.

Join us for a conversation with Karen Washington, urban community gardener and food justice advocate and Jabari S. Walker, Sustainability and Energy Coordinator at Bowie State University around the topics of urban farming, sustainability and the environment.

Karen Washington is a long-time community gardener and food justice advocate who has spent decades promoting urban farming as a way for all New Yorkers to access to fresh, locally grown food. As a board member of the New York Botanical Gardens, she works with neighborhoods to turn empty lots into community gardens. As co-founder of the La Familia Verde Garden Coalition, she helped launch a City Farms Market, bringing fresh vegetables to the Bronx community. In 2010, Washington co-founded Black Urban Growers (BUGS), an organization supporting Black growers in both urban and rural settings. She is board president of Greenworker Cooperatives, which builds and sustains worker-owned green businesses to create a strong, local, and democratic economy rooted in racial and gender equity. Washington is also a former board member of Why Hunger, a grassroots support organization, and Farm School NYC, which leads workshops on growing food and food justice across the country. Additionally, she is on the Board of Directors of Soul Fire Farm, the Black Farmer Fund, and the Mary Michell Family & Youth Center. Since retiring from physical therapy in 2014, she has been a co-owner and organic grower at Rise & Root Farm in Chester, New York.

Jabari S. Walker currently serves as Bowie State University’s (BSU) first-ever Sustainability & Energy Coordinator and leads the Office of Sustainability for the 6,300+ student campus. Walker is credited with creating the Student Green Ambassadors organization, drafting the BSU Climate Action Plan 2020, coordinating the world’s first known solar powered bus station that charges mobile devices (on the BSU campus), creating the school’s annual Climate Career Fair, and coordinating the planting of the first campus orchard. In June 2021, Walker was appointed by the Maryland Secretary of the Environment as a member of the Education, Communications and Outreach (ECO) Workgroup of the Maryland Commission on Climate Change, where he now serves as co-chair.  

The program will take place at the Connie Morella Library and it will also be offered via live streaming.

Registration is still open.

If you plan to attend the program IN-PERSON, please join us at the Connie Morella Library at 5:30 pm. Seating is limited.

If you plan to attend the program via LIVE STREAMING from anywhere, please click the link below to join the webinar:

https://marylandlibraries.zoom.us/j/92906884926

Webinar ID: 929 0688 4926

The Contemporary Conversations series is co-sponsored by Friends of the Library, Montgomery County (FOLMC) and the Literacy Council of Montgomery County (LCMC).

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Accommodation Requests

People who are Deaf or Hard of Hearing should request English-language captioning or sign-language interpretation at least five days before the library-sponsored program they plan to attend. Contact the Assistant Facilities and Accessibility Program Manager at 240-777-0002 with all other accommodation requests.

cm 1.1 01/03/2023

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