Reclaim the Outdoors
While at the Longfellow Community Council, Bennett worked to secure a Green Partners grant and organize a series of events focused on empowering community members through increasing access to green spaces. He worked to empower residents previously underserved by public entities. He sought support from the Black Table Arts Collective (a collective of Black artists), Better Futures (an anti-recitivism organization focused on employment through deconstructing buildings for recycling), and the Urban Bird Collective (an organization working to create safe and joyous birding experiences for the LGBTQIA+ and BIPOC community) to execute the project.
For details about the initiative, please see the following description from the Longfellow Community Council’s report:
“Bench Building
Leopold Benches are named for Aldo Leopold, an internationally recognized figure in wildlife conservation and pioneering author and philosopher on environmental ethics and land stewardship. Leopold benches are beneficial for viewing wildlife. The design of the bench allows for a person to sit backward on the bench, providing a rest for elbows while looking through binoculars. This makes them great for bird watching!
Longfellow and Seward community members, with help from organizers at Better Futures, built 10 Leopold benches using reclaimed and recycled wood. Better Futures is non-profit located in Longfellow that is dedicated to reintegrating high-risk adults, primarily African American men, into society by providing a platform to help them succeed. The agency works with men with histories of incarceration, substance abuse, chronic unemployment, and homelessness —men who have a high risk of being repeat offenders.
Bench Painting
Once the 10 benches were built, Longfellow and Seward Community members spent an afternoon painting them at Black Table Arts Co-op. Each volunteer brought their own creativity to the benches by painting hem with colors, designs and patterns that reflected their story. The benches were then lacquered to make them weatherproof. You can find the benches throughout South Minneapolis in community gardens and outdoor spaces.
Black Table Arts is a community driven arts cooperative located in Minneapolis, Minnesota gathering black communities through the arts toward better black futures. Complete with a bookstore, private meeting rooms, shared workspace and a performance space (BTA) makes bold the connection between art and grassroots organizing by providing programs that invite local artists to see themselves as change makers and organizers of their collective liberation…”
