Mt. Airy’s Julia Weekes makes city more beautiful every day

by ANNE BARR

Mt. Airy resident Julia Weekes. Weekes was in Paris last month to be named a “Woman of the Earth” by the Yves Rocher Foundation in recognition of her work bringing the beauty and transformative power of gardens to distressed communities in North Philadelphia. (Photo by Anne Barr)

“I’m pretty tenacious,” says Mt. Airy resident Julia Weekes. Weekes was in Paris last month to be named a “Woman of the Earth” by the Yves Rocher Foundation in recognition of her work bringing the beauty and transformative power of gardens to distressed communities in North Philadelphia. With the foundation’s $6,000 award, Weekes is hopeful that her mission in Philadelphia will continue to blossom, and she’s hoping other tenacious Philadelphians will catch her vision and join her crusade to “bring Eden to the inner city.”

Yves Rocher is a line of “botanical” cosmetics whose creator claims that “nature is the source of beauty.” He created the foundation that recognizes Weekes’ efforts in Philadelphia out of a conviction that “the future of man, his well-being and his happiness depend on his ability to live in harmony with nature and to respect it.”

In September 2001, the foundation initiated the “Women of the Earth” (Terre de Femmes) award to the leaders of all-female organizations whose efforts to honor nature are “unique, original, exemplary and easily copied.” A friend from the United Way thought of Weekes the minute she received the nomination form. “She called me right away,” said Weekes, “and she said, ‘Julia, this is you.’”

“Grow From Your Roots,” the educational enterprise headed by Weekes, was launched only a year ago, but Weekes and her husband, Ignatius, have been working to green Philadelphia for a decade. Previously, they ran a for-profit business together called Nana, which had both educational programs and a landscaping business. “But we really felt like it was important to move the educational programs into a nonprofit status,” said Weekes. The program’s not-for-profit status, according to Weekes, allows them to have “more autonomy and be more competitive for funding.”

Julia’s vision for her current work began in her college days, when she studied painting at Syracuse University. During the course of her studies, she spent some time at the Royal College of Art in London. In Europe she found that there was a much greater consciousness of the visual aesthetic of public spaces. “There was much more thought put into how public spaces look,” said Weekes. “And there was more government support.”

Standing in the midst of the G.B. Hill Community Garden on 16th Street in North Philadelphia, Weekes related stories of bringing children — and eventually their parents and grandparents — into once neglected spaces. “People would look at what was going on from across the street,” noted Weekes. “So our task became creating situations where people would come into the garden.” Developing experimental learning programs in partnership with local public schools is often what first brings children to the gardens.

“At first,” said Weekes, “children are fearful of the natural world. They think dirt is just dirty; they think you get asthma from being near plants. But being in the garden and beginning to put their hands in the earth, they start to understand how the natural world works. Then we show them how the natural world works in the same way their bodies work — and they begin to see how everything is connected.”

Growing up on the Main Line, Weekes recalled how gardens were always a place of refuge for her, a place where she could really imagine and dream. Her dream now is to keep “Grow From Your Roots” growing and is glad the Rocher Foundation’s check will “keep us alive.” She is hoping, however, that the attention generated by the award will attract new partners to her vision so that, eventually, the roots of community gardening in Philadelphia will be deep in Philadelphia.