Students Sprout Little Free Library, Resource Guide in Hyattsville Food Forest

A group of students from the University of Maryland’s College Park Scholars program and College of Arts and Humanities ushered in spring with a volunteer project at the Hyattsville Food Forest, one that helps feed the soul as well as the body. 

City Arborist Dawn Taft, Scholars faculty member Dani Moore, and Department of English Senior Lecturer Heidi Scott oversaw the installation of a little free library earlier this month at the Hyattsville Food Forest on Emerson Street; inside is a resource and recipe guide for visitors created by students in Scott’s class “Mutualist: Redesigning Human-Earth Relations.”

For three years, the Global FEWture Alliance, a UMD Grand Challenges project led by the School of Public Health, has partnered with the city of Hyattsville to support the maintenance and development of its food forests. Part of that work has involved coordinating with student groups to help weed, prune, plant, harvest, water and learn from the curated menagerie of plants that call the food forest home. 

The one on Emerson Street is less than an acre, but it contains dozens of edible species in an agricultural project designed to be largely self-sustaining, a permaculture that enriches both ecology and community in this working-class neighborhood near the Anacostia River.

As the College Park Scholars students removed invasive bulbs, students in the mutualist class planted the little free library in wet concrete, where it will anchor the cultural values and possibilities of this urban socio-ecological innovation. The Global FEWture Alliance, where Scott is the communications director, will continue to work with Hyattsville on initiatives to build rainwater harvesting and solar power at the food forest.   

The new guide has several elements: watercolor illustrations of forest fruits by sophomore history major Patty Dongarra; principles of the honorable harvest of common resources, inspired by Indigenous teachings and written by freshman dance major Taraja Samuel; and a series of easy recipes including the edible plants in the forest, written by freshman history major Alexis Tokos and sophomore English major Jacob Ly.

The work will live in a mini-library box designed and crafted by sophomore philosophy and political economy major Evan Abraham. His diminutive work of architecture has a vaulted black roof, and a bright red door frame.

“This project gave me the opportunity to act on the food forest's core value as a community resource for education,” he said. “I hope its neighbors can learn more about this space through our resource guide, and in doing so, help ensure the forest’s sustainable use and longevity.”