Cultivating Connections to New Haven’s Land and Water
A Conversation with Gather New Haven’s Jonathón Savage and Zion Jones
Editor’s Note: In a time when food access, environmental justice, and community well-being intersect more urgently than ever, Gather New Haven stands at the forefront of a local movement with broad regional resonance. Recently, I sat down with Executive Director Jonathón Savage and Development and Community Outreach Manager Zion Jones to talk about the mission and momentum behind their work, and how their community-centered, integrated approach connects to this issue’s farmland access theme. What follows is a lightly edited version of our conversation. - Marissa Latshaw
Marissa Latshaw (ML): Can you tell me about your mission and the many ways that Gather New Haven is fulfilling it?
Jonathón Savage (JS): Gather’s core mission, in practice, is giving people access to green spaces—whether that be for food, enjoyment, community building, or mental health. Getting out in the forest or growing food in our community gardens keeps access alive and available.
Living in New Haven, in an urban environment, there’s food insecurity—people struggle even when they’re not in a space where they don’t have access to food. They often don’t have access to healthy, locally grown food. I often say, if everyone could afford to shop at Whole Foods exclusively, most people probably would. But therein lies the problem.
So we get people out into community gardens, give them access to people who have the knowledge to pass on how to grow their own food, and how to build community around food spaces. And then we also get people out into green spaces. Our other programs build on that—we’ve got our farm-based wellness program, which is a diabetes prevention program that’s held on farm or garden sites. It lets people see where their food comes from, learn about their health, and build solidarity around that.
Campers at Schooner Summer Camp sail into New Haven Harbor after a day of coastal environmental education. Photo courtesy of Gather New Haven
We also have our Schooner Camp, which promotes environmental science and sailing skills. One of our preserves is a coastal area, and we get kids out there on the water—a reminder that New Haven is a coastal city. But you can grow up in New Haven and never really do much on the water, except maybe go to Lighthouse Park on a school event. So it’s about helping people remember and connect.
Zion Jones (ZJ): I would also add that we’re not only cultivating green spaces—we play a large part in cultivating social relationships in New Haven. We give folks a safe space to learn, particularly youth, and we help them develop a sense of responsibility to those green spaces.
We want to raise the next generation of nature stewards—kids who feel a sense of belonging and responsibility to urban green spaces. We’ve partnered with Liberated Land Cooperative to start an incubator program at a couple of our farms, giving young and upcoming farmers a learning space to work with experienced BIPOC farmers. They get their hands in the dirt, learn from others, and gain that practical experience.
Farm-based Wellness Program leader harvests fresh produce to give to program participants. Photo courtesy of Gather New Haven
ML: Can you talk about the land itself—the preserves you manage, the community gardens, and how specifically people engage with them?
ZJ: Gather New Haven used to be the New Haven Land Trust, so we acquired some of the preserve properties as donations from former landowners—like Quinnipiac Meadows. Others came through partnerships, like oyster projects at Long Wharf. We now have six preserves. Three are accessible for public use; the others are for conservation purposes.
At the accessible ones, we host field trips, nature walks, and birding. There’s also research going on, through partnerships with the University of New Haven, UConn, and Yale. Professors bring students to our sites for everything from biology to tree identification.
An environmental educator leads students on a field trip alongside the Quinnipiac River at Quinnipiac Meadows Nature Preserve. Photo courtesy of Gather New Haven
JS: Schooner Camp at Long Wharf is a major engagement point. And more recently, we’ve been working with EMERGE—they support people who were formerly incarcerated and place them in service roles, like helping to maintain our preserves and gardens.
We’re also in the early stages of relationship-building with Indigenous organizers around the state. It’s a quiet, respectful process, but we’re inviting them to visit our spaces and offer input. We want to honor the fact that we’re on Quinnipiac land and try to include native plants and species with cultural importance.
“We want to raise the next generation of nature stewards—kids who feel a sense of belonging and responsibility to urban green spaces.”
We also run 44 community gardens. We try to provide them with resources—raised bed materials, soil, seedlings, maintenance. This year’s been tough with a change in federal administration and funding. We were part of a planned EPA grant that would’ve brought in about $100,000 a year for the garden network—for much-needed upgrades. Those funds are frozen. So we’re reapplying, looking elsewhere. We’re not stopping the work.
Volunteers lend a helping hand at Ferry Street Farm. Photo courtesy of Gather New Haven
ML: What safeguards are in place to ensure that the land can continue to be used as community gardens?
JS: I would say the safeguards that we have for ensuring that the land remains gardens are the few gardens that Gather New Haven owns. The majority of our gardens, 90 percent, are owned by the City of New Haven and at any time (with notice), they can be taken back by the city to be used for other purposes, usually development, which results in not only the loss of the community garden but the loss of the greenspace forever. This is the unfortunate truth.
ML: What advice do you have for people in other cities who are interested in connecting people with green spaces and tackling food insecurity?
Because most of our gardens started with the community capturing an unused city-owned parcel, I would look to build a group of like-minded individuals who have connections in the community. Find a good space to start getting people out, fill that space not only with growing food but also with what the community needs. Provide tables for elders; bring local professionals with expertise to speak about the benefits of community gardens; start a book club; give away food to people who pass by to catch their attention. Go to your local government and show how you have begun transforming a space for the benefit of the community and work to create an agreement to give official use of that space (if not the city, whoever owns the parcel).
“Living in New Haven, in an urban environment, there’s food insecurity—people struggle even when they’re not in a space where they don’t have access to food.”
ML: Do the six preserves play any role in growing food?
JS: Mostly, food production happens in the gardens. At some preserves, there are fruit trees, or people may forage for fiddlehead ferns or native herbs. But we try to keep food and conservation separate, unless there’s an ecological reason—like restoring native species. It’s not for commercial use, just to support the ecosystem. Sometimes the “lucky traveler” might come across something edible—and that’s okay.
ML: How do the gardens function, and what role do they play in food access?
JS: The gardens are directly addressing food insecurity. They also help people reconnect with growing food—especially in a city with lots of rentals where people don’t have a yard or can’t dig. Gather helps by securing leases from the City of New Haven. Many of these spaces started as guerrilla gardens—people just began growing in abandoned lots.
ZJ: And all the gardens are different. Some are communal, some have individual raised beds. It’s up to the community—we don’t dictate that. Some gardens are in elderly housing where they’ve found it works better to grow together in a communal way. Others have four- by eight-foot beds so people can feel ownership. That piece of land, however small, is important—especially in places where folks don’t own much. It gives people control over something in their life, and that matters for mental health too.
JS: I’ll say, if I could wave a magic wand, every garden would be communal. You grow more food that way. But I understand the value of individual plots. These gardens are about food, yes—but they’re also about care, identity, healing.
ML: That’s beautifully said. Thank you both for the work you’re doing and for taking the time to talk about it with me.
JS: Thank you. Let’s keep the conversation going.
ZJ: Absolutely. We’re always growing—plants, people, community.
Zion Jones, Development and Community Outreach Manager at Gather New Haven, is originally from Denver, Colorado. She came to Gather from Colorado State University with a background in ecosystem science, sustainability, and ethnic studies. Besides being an avid traveler, creator, and lover of nature, she is dedicated to a personal passion of restoring our relationships to our natural environments through environmental education, eco-therapy, and social-environmental justice.
Jonathón Savage is a native of New Haven’s Newhallville neighborhood, where he has spent his lifetime connecting to the roots of his community through the agricultural spaces within the city and its surrounding neighborhoods. Cultivating the land was a way of life, rather than a hobby, that was passed on to him by his grandparents. This connection between food and land is one Jonathón has nurtured throughout his life and intentionally works to pass on to others. In 2021 Jonathón started with Gather New Haven as the Farm Manager, overseeing four farm sites and providing food to farm-based wellness programs and to the New Haven community through donations and a small farm stand. Jonathón has served as the organization’s Executive Director since March 2024. Since then he has been guiding Gather toward its future by strengthening community relationships, supporting staff, and establishing new organizational partners.
Marissa Latshaw works with mission-driven organizations to build empathetic and inclusive communication strategies that inspire action. She is the Publisher of From the Ground Up and Co-coordinator of the Wildlands, Woodlands, Farmlands & Communities initiative, working with partners throughout New England to help bring a more holistic, integrated approach to land conservation. Marissa lives in Connecticut with her family.