When you choose to work with Pine House, you are supporting the Black Sanctuary Gardens project—a series of garden spaces created in collaboration with Black women and Black communities in and around Oakland, CA. A portion of your garden design, installation and maintenance fees help fund the creation of at least one Black Sanctuary Garden space each year, and as many more as we have funds for! Creating places of respite and beauty that celebrate our Black communities is essential as we work to grow a more beautiful and equitable world together.
Your donation goes directly to the Pine House // Black Sanctuary Gardens fund and will be used to cover the costs for plants, materials and installation labor needed to create Black Sanctuary Gardens in collaboration with Black women and communities. Donations are not tax-deductible.
To keep up with our work and see our latest Black Sanctuary Garden creations, follow along on Instagram at @blksanctuarygardens.
If you’re interested in creating a garden funded in part by the Black Sanctuary Gardens project, then please contact us here.
About Black Sanctuary Gardens
Black Sanctuary Gardens is a series of visually inspired, nourishing and culturally grounded garden installations that serve as restorative spaces for the peace, self-care and inspiration of the African Diaspora in and around Oakland, CA.
Inspired in part by Alice Walker’s naming of the garden as a site for Black women’s spirituality, creativity and artistic work, landscape designer Leslie Bennett and her team work to design, install and care for a series of low to no-cost Black Sanctuary Gardens in support of Black women and Black communities. Visual curation and photographic documentation of project participants in their garden spaces is a secondary, integral part of the project as we create imagery that more accurately and inclusively reflects the relationship of Black women and communities with plants and gardens.
Starting in 2018, with the creation and photographic documentation of a backyard oasis for a Black woman community leader based in East Oakland, and continuing in 2019-2021, with the creation and photography of a (self-funded) backyard garden for Leslie Bennett’s own family home in East Oakland as well as six further front and backyard garden projects for Black women based in East and West Oakland, the Black Sanctuary Gardens project is currently in planning stages for our 2024 projects.
Awarded the East Bay Fund for Artists matching grant by the East Bay Community Foundation in 2018, Black Sanctuary Garden’s project for Alena Museum, a 501(c)(3) charitable organization, is also in planning stages and will be our first publicly accessible dedicated green sanctuary space for the African Diaspora in Oakland.
The primary goal of Black Sanctuary Gardens is to create garden spaces for Black women to rest and be restored. A further goal is to define, uphold and celebrate our connection to the land and with plants; also to support the creation of Black community spaces, especially amidst gentrification and displacement of historically Black communities in Oakland.
Black Sanctuary Gardens is an exciting opportunity to develop gardens that are reflective of our brilliant Black community and supportive of our specific cultural experiences, while offering real sanctuary for Black people to commune, converse, collaborate, heal, rest, and be nourished.
See link above to donate to support our work and help us create more Black Sanctuary Garden space! Thank you!