Q Gardens (Brooklyn, New York) was founded in Q Gardens sits upon a formerly unused lot owned by the Metropolitan Transit Authority. In the fall of 2012, Anne Schoeneborn, a core Garden coordinator and then-new resident to the Prospect Park South neighborhood, contacted 596acres.org to add the lot to their online map of NYC public, unused land. With this began a long, circuitous journey to get permission from MTA, the owner of the lot, to open the space to the community. Initially, Prescott Vann, MTA‚Äôs Deputy Director of Leasing & Acquisitions, assigned Arturo Espinoza to help seek approval from New York City Transit. Through 596 acres, Ali Jacobs, a resident of neighboring Lefferts Gardens, also soon joined the project. Together, Anne and Ali visited a number of community gardens around Brooklyn to see how different urban gardens are organized; reached out to community stakeholders; got the official support of Community Board 14 and a range of local businesses, residents, and organizations; and built a community of 50+ neighbors interested in actively participating in the garden‚Äìas well as a core group of organizers leading the overall planning process. This group included master composter, Natalia Sucre, who has coordinated Q Gardens‚Äô prolific community composting initiative ever since in addition to serving as general co-coordinator since we adopted our coordination structure in 2016. As planning progressed, we decided that our best strategy for long-term stewardship of the lot would be to join the Brooklyn Queens Land Trust (BQLT) as an affiliate garden. In December of 2014, Q Gardens officially gained access to the lot. BQLT signed the lease‚Äìon behalf of Q Gardens‚Äìwith MTA and Q Gardens has a license to operate the garden from BQLT. Since 2014, the Garden has continued to thrive, winning the New York City Parks Department’s GreenThumb Sustainability Award in 2019. and serves The sustaining of community amidst the pandemic. Q Gardens remained open throughout the pandemic, both as a community composting site and green space that continued to bring together community members in growing, harvesting, composting, and simply walking around and enjoying Q Garden’s slice of green space. We have heard from several community members and volunteers that simply having access to the Garden in the pandemic’s darkest days was a reprieve from the grimness and isolation wrought by COVID. . This garden is a place where people can learn, work, explore, and enjoy the outdoors. It exemplifies community growth and contribution. For more information, check out https://qgardenscf.com/.