On Saturday, November 6th, residents gathered at Giving One Tenth Garden in Newark’s South Ward to commemorate loved ones who passed away during the coronavirus pandemic, in a special event produced by Seeds & Berries. The event featured spoken word performances by local educator and artist Mia X and Violinist Bri Blvck, and remarks by various community and agency leaders and first responders who have remained on the frontlines since the outbreak of COVID-19.
The ceremony built up to the planting of two trees in Giving One Tenth Community Garden, which provides access to fresh, local, in-season crops organically grown, to the City of Newark and surrounding towns. One by one participants dropped their dedication cards, each inscribed with the names of family members, friends, colleagues and neighbors, into the hole.
Amidst sidewalk chalk affirmations and burning incense, upon arrival attendees were supported by the Seeds & Berries team in creating commemorative “Legacy Stones” to adorn the adjacent Garden, as well as writing their loved ones’ names on “Dedication Cards,” which were to were planted with two fruit trees. During the healing circle, attendees were encouraged to chant the names of those lost and pour libations in their honor, and were also taken through a guided meditation facilitated by Seeds & Berries.
Saturday’s tree planting and art-based healing ceremony was the culmination of a series of ‘Grief Relief’ workshops facilitated by Seeds & Berries with local children, hospital staff and currently incarcerated people who, to this day, are still coping with the explicit, nuanced and compounded grief over the course of the pandemic. The specific program cohorts, whose grief was complicated, misunderstood or unheard, included:
- Children under 12
- Currently Incarcerated Individuals
- Police and Social Service Workers
- Medical Providers
Seeds & Berries’ Founder Alia Berry MSW, LSW, is an experienced social work veteran and Certified Grief and Loss Specialist who has lived and served in the Newark community for more than a decade. Through these workshops, the tree planting ceremony and art showcase, Berry and her team are helping community members deal with and manage their grief through trauma-informed social work and art-based healing. In 2015, Berry founded “The COPE Squad,” a peer-to-peer support framework offered in schools and nonprofits in an effort to create spaces to cope specifically with Street Grief (a term coined by Seeds & Berries for those grieving loss by homicide) through art and community leadership.
“Newark, the largest city in New Jersey, was hit significantly harder by COVID deaths when compared to other municipalities in Essex County, at one point experiencing the highest rates in the state overall. For many, the COVID grieving experience was further compounded by unresolved and overlooked grief related to having lost loved ones to violence before and during the pandemic,” says Berry. “Using a trauma-informed, community-based approach, we are building awareness around how grief works, teaching effective coping skills, and leveraging the power of art therapy to help facilitate individual and community healing from both disenfranchised and vicarious grief.”
Photographer: Briana Berry
