Bay Area

Volunteer’s Green Thumb Brings a Community Garden in East Oakland Back to Life

Published

4 years ago

April 22, 2021

Satterell Singh in the Community Garden in Oakland’s Fairfax neighborhood. Photo by Wanda Ravernell.

Satterell Singh is looking forward to the day the water system he is creating at the Community Garden at Ygnacio and Congress in East Oakland is ready.

Toting 5-gallon bottles from the back of his station wagon into the small lot across from Horace Mann Elementary School in the Fairfax neighborhood is wearing Singh out. “I’m invested in getting rid of this method,” quipped the son of an African American woman and a Punjabi immigrant who met in college in the 1970s.

The 2005 graduate of Castlemont High School is a former linebacker who carries the bottles with ease. He explains that, so far, everything that comes into the garden is either by his hands or one of the two wheelbarrows in the center of the patch.

Besides his 4-year-old daughter Marlie, and wife, Ebony, also a former Knight, he can’t count on regular help with the tasks at hand, but he hoped to change that when he hosted a garden event the day before Easter.

On hand were seedlings of Tuscany melon, cucumber, strawberry and wildflowers to entice children to plant in the planter boxes that has been repaired by Singh with found wood.

Children weren’t coming by themselves, Singh knew, and while the kids were busy, he believed he could persuade some strong parents to help with other strenuous tasks in order to carry out his three-part plan for the garden.

The first part involves laying down sheet mulch — layers of wood and cardboard that should kill off any crabgrass and other ‘strays’ that the birds plant. Building up the soil for both the planters and the ground is next for Phase 1, followed by pruning and the removal of dead or dying grapefruit and other trees. “Cloning is in the future,” he said of a method to revive the space with healthier plants.

The second part of Singh’s plan involves the permanent structures, like remodeling the chicken coop with found wood and donated coop wire and building a chicken run, and a 10-foot by 10-foot pergola for shade and a work/entertainment area for visitors. Those structures are key to his water collection, placing barrels in places to collect runoff and a tote that will eventually have a 500-gallon capacity.

The third part is getting the community involved. He wants to teach people how to develop and take care of an outdoor place that serves both ornamentally and practically. It is important to Singh that Black people be part of the movement to grow their own food and that they see other Black people gaining and teaching those skills.

Singh’s own eclectic knowledge comes from classes at Laney College, Merritt College and San Francisco State University where he studied Urban Planning, horticulture and landscape gardening. His grandmother, who moved West from Louisiana and raised seven children in the Brookfield neighborhood in Deep East Oakland, taught him the value of growing food of your own.

“You know what you put in, so you know what you’ll get out,” he said, a point driven home even more during the pandemic when there was not only food insecurity across the country but a lack of high quality fresh fruit and vegetables.

(As a boy, Singh raided his neighbors’ yards for fruit so often that they began to gather the plums – his favorite – oranges, figs and avocados and leave them on front stoops for him to pick up.)

He loved working the garden with his grandmother so much that he started his own landscaping business right after high school, but he couldn’t hold onto it. For a few years, he was part of what he called the ‘backdoor’ cannabis industry. He insisted, however, that his failures in attempting to grow cannabis indoors were both eye-opening and exhilarating, sending him down what he called a ‘rabbit hole’ of knowledge on permaculture, to what he really wants to create, a landscaping business where what is grown is eaten.

In the meantime, Singh now works up to 80 hours a week working security to support his family. “I had to put down what I loved, to take of who I love,” he said. But Ebony knew her husband missed working in gardens and she encouraged him to use his spare time in the community garden they discovered just driving by one day.

On a chilly morning, Singh has come to the garden after pulling a graveyard shift and a couple of hours overtime, yet he energetically cut back an out-of-control blackberry bush while R&B music wafts from his car radio. Ebony and Marlie bring him a snack.

While a neighbor collects oversized grapefruits that have fallen from a tree, Singh, now digging with a trowel around the roots of a lemon tree that had been hidden by the blackberries, gets back to the matter at hand. He will eat later.

Mia Lane

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Oakland Post: Week of June 18 – 24, 2025

The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of June 18 – 24, 2025

Published

7 days ago

June 20, 2025

Oakland Post

To enlarge your view of this issue, use the slider, magnifying glass icon or full page icon in the lower right corner of the browser window.

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Juneteenth: Celebrating Our History, Honoring Our Shared Spaces

It’s been empowering to watch Juneteenth blossom into a widely celebrated holiday, filled with vibrant outdoor events like cookouts, festivals, parades, and more. It’s inspiring to see the community embrace our history—showing up in droves to celebrate freedom, a freedom delayed for some enslaved Americans more than two years after the Emancipation Proclamation was signed.

Published

1 week ago

June 18, 2025

Oakland Post

Wayne Wilson, Public Affairs Campaign Manager, Caltrans

By Wayne Wilson, Public Affairs Campaign Manager, Caltrans

Juneteenth marks an important moment in our shared history—a time to reflect on the legacy of our ancestors who, even in the face of injustice, chose freedom, unity, and community over fear, anger, and hopelessness. We honor their resilience and the paths they paved so future generations can continue to walk with pride.

As we head into the weekend full of festivities and summer celebrations, I want to offer a friendly reminder about who is not invited to the cookout: litter.

At Clean California, we believe the places where we gather—parks, parade routes, street corners, and church lots—should reflect the pride and beauty of the people who fill them. Our mission is to restore and beautify public spaces, transforming areas impacted by trash and neglect into spaces that reflect the strength and spirit of the communities who use them.

Too often, after the music fades and the grills cool, our public spaces are left littered with trash. Just as our ancestors took pride in their communities, we honor their legacy when we clean up after ourselves, teach our children to do the same, and care for our shared spaces.

Small acts can inspire big change. Since 2021, Clean California and its partners have collected and removed over 2.9 million cubic yards of litter. We did this by partnering with local nonprofits and community organizations to organize grassroots cleanup events and beautification projects across California.

Now, we invite all California communities to continue the incredible momentum and take the pledge toward building a cleaner community through our Clean California Community Designation Program. This recognizes cities and neighborhoods committed to long-term cleanliness and civic pride.

This Juneteenth, let’s not only celebrate our history—but also contribute to its legacy. By picking up after ourselves and by leaving no litter behind after celebrations, we have an opportunity to honor our past and shape a cleaner, safer, more vibrant future.

Visit CleanCA.com to learn more about Clean California.

Oakland Post

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OPINION: California’s Legislature Has the Wrong Prescription for the Affordability Crisis — Gov. Newsom’s Plan Hits the Mark

Last month, Gov. Newsom included measures in his budget that would encourage greater transparency, accountability, and affordability across the prescription drug supply chain. His plan would deliver real relief to struggling Californians. It would also help expose the hidden markups and practices by big drug companies that push the prices of prescription drugs higher and higher. The legislature should follow the Governor’s lead and embrace sensible, fair regulations that will not raise the cost of medications.

Published

1 week ago

June 18, 2025

Oakland Post

Rev. Dr. Lawrence E. VanHook. Courtesy of Rev. Dr. Lawrence E. VanHook.

By Rev. Dr. Lawrence E. VanHook

As a pastor and East Bay resident, I see firsthand how my community struggles with the rising cost of everyday living. A fellow pastor in Oakland recently told me he cuts his pills in half to make them last longer because of the crushing costs of drugs.

Meanwhile, community members are contending with skyrocketing grocery prices and a lack of affordable healthcare options, while businesses are being forced to close their doors.

Our community is hurting. Things have to change.

The most pressing issue that demands our leaders’ attention is rising healthcare costs, and particularly the rising cost of medications. Annual prescription drug costs in California have spiked by nearly 50% since 2018, from $9.1 billion to $13.6 billion.

Some lawmakers, however, have advanced legislation that would drive up healthcare costs and set communities like mine back further.

I’m particularly concerned with Senate Bill (SB) 41, sponsored by Sen. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco), a carbon copy of a 2024 bill that I strongly opposed and Gov. Newsom rightly vetoed. This bill would impose significant healthcare costs on patients, small businesses, and working families, while allowing big drug companies to increase their profits.

SB 41 would impose a new $10.05 pharmacy fee for every prescription filled in California. This new fee, which would apply to millions of Californians, is roughly five times higher than the current average of $2.

For example, a Bay Area family with five monthly prescriptions would be forced to shoulder about $500 more in annual health costs. If a small business covers 25 employees, each with four prescription fills per month (the national average), that would add nearly $10,000 per year in health care costs.

This bill would also restrict how health plan sponsors — like employers, unions, state plans, Medicare, and Medicaid — partner with pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) to negotiate against big drug companies and deliver the lowest possible costs for employees and members. By mandating a flat fee for pharmacy benefit services, this misguided legislation would undercut your health plan’s ability to drive down costs while handing more profits to pharmaceutical manufacturers.

This bill would also endanger patients by eliminating safety requirements for pharmacies that dispense complex and costly specialty medications. Additionally, it would restrict home delivery for prescriptions, a convenient and affordable service that many families rely on.

Instead of repeating the same tired plan laid out in the big pharma-backed playbook, lawmakers should embrace Newsom’s transparency-first approach and prioritize our communities.

Let’s urge our state legislators to reject policies like SB 41 that would make a difficult situation even worse for communities like ours.

About the Author

Rev. Dr. VanHook is the founder and pastor of The Community Church in Oakland and the founder of The Charis House, a re-entry facility for men recovering from alcohol and drug abuse.