‘A bit of a haven’: Southwest Baltimore church reclaims a dying urban forest and creates a community oasis
By Tatyana Turner
This piece was originally published on March 15, 2021 in the Baltimore Sun—you can find it in its original form here.
For years, the 10-acre stretch of land along Frederick Road in Southwest Baltimore was easy to drive by, considered nothing more than “the woods.”
A hundred sick and dying ash trees and long tangles of invasive thick vines covered the hilly, brown patch. Kids used it as a cut-through; others dumped trash or tires there. The land’s owner, Stillmeadow Community Fellowship, tried more than once to sell the plot.
No one wanted it.
But Pastor Michael S. Martin, the parish’s leader, saw something else in that land: an opportunity to worship, to study and to reclaim the neglected green space that was once a thriving urban forest.
In an effort that began two summers ago, worshippers, environmentalists, neighbors and students have come together in a rare collaboration involving the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Forest Service. The volunteers cut down dead trees and hauled away loads of branches and logs. In a newly created tree nursery, they’ve potted 1,100 poplar and willow saplings nicknamed “Baby Groots.” All of this labor will bear life as they re-imagine their patch of land as a peace park and work to make their campus more sustainable.
“I don’t know how to change the country. I don’t know how to change the world. But I do know how to have an impact in my neighborhood where my parish is,” said Martin, who has led the Christian, mostly Black church since 2017…
