U.S. Navy veteran Jovian Patterson and his long-time friend Robert Haley are both on a mission to grow culturally significant crops for residents in their childhood community.
After spending six years away in the U.S. Navy and returning to Philadelphia in 2008, Patterson was inspired to pursue this mission after noticing the block he previously grown up on in the city’s Kingsessing section had changed.
Many of the rowhomes had been demolished and replaced with vacant lots.
“We started out trying to improve the community, grow stuff that’s culturally relevant — collard greens, mustard greens, tomatoes, peppers, things of that nature,” said Patterson. “We also wanted to include an aspect of teaching."
The education component, Patterson stated, focused on helping people within his community learn how to grow and farm things that they can take home to their families.
Beginning with just two raised garden beds in Southwest Philadelphia, the launch of the Original American Foundation (OAF) was later born.
Co-founder Robert Haley said being the change in his community is what drove him to push this mission from humble beginnings.
“I actually live on the block where one of our plots is attached. Teaching people how to grow, soak seeds properly, spacing of the seeds, soil mixtures... this year we want to teach more,” said Haley.
In addition to OAF’s harvest programs, the founders also aim to increase financial literacy when it comes to acquiring available plots through the Philadelphia Land Bank.
OAF acquired six vacant lots in the area of S. Allison Street and Paschall Avenue, where its greenhouse now stands, providing members with a place to farm.
Haley reflects on their earlier journey, starting with a vacant lot that he considered “a trash dump.”
“I, a friend of mine, and Jovian started to see this as more than a dump. We took our time and effort, way before we became a nonprofit, spending hours and hours cleaning this stuff up,” added Haley.
They credit a local mentor, Adam Butler of César Andreu Iglesias Community Garden in North Philadelphia. Butler helped them navigate what they considered “a whole new realm” at the time.
“We never really know about the whole land thing or how any of that really worked,” said Patterson. “When he came down and told us it was up for a sheriff sale, it immediately sparked a fire up under us like, ‘No. Nobody is taking this.’”
Patterson began asking himself questions such as, “How could we preserve this land? How could we keep this for us and for the community?”
That, along with a career transitional period, inspired Patterson to teach himself about what a land bank was and how to formally submit documents like a grant writer.
“We like to say from the muscle. It was just like we saw something that needed to be done, and we did all of our research,” he added.
Despite assistance from the Public Interest Law Center, William Penn Foundation, and the city’s Community Resilience & Environmental Justice Fund to acquire more lots, the nonprofit still encountered various roadblocks along the way.
One of the major roadblocks was waiting years for Philadelphia City Council to pass a resolution approving the land bank in 2022 to dispose of the parcels that Patterson had applied for.
But the nonprofit still waited almost two years after that for the process to move forward.
As of spring 2025, OAF eventually owned the vacant land it farms on and began delivering free bags of produce to several dozen households in the neighborhood.
In addition to OAF’s community garden efforts and hosting food mixers, the nonprofit hosts its April ‘Original American Workshop’ where participants plant fruit trees, fruit bushes, and build raised beds.
Haley touched on new plans to provide the community with a repurposing program to learn how to build garden boxes and reuse broken-down pallets for more arts and cultural aspects, such as wooden trellises for grape vines.
OAF also aims to host farmers’ markets and expand on partnerships like its sponsorship with UPenn’s ‘Deeply Rooted’ initiative.
There are plans with the help of Deeply Rooted to create a mini-park in the area of S. 56th Street and Paschall Avenue by the end of 2026, according to OAF, which is still to be determined.
But OAF says helping eliminate illegal trash dumping, which continues to impact many city vacant lots, remains a major focus in 2026 and requires community support.
