We all know the first Pride started with a brick — so we're carrying on the tradition of queers-being-queers-wielding-bricks-for-liberation; only this time we won’t be throwing bricks, we’ll be using them to build a new stone bench in our queer-owned and TGNC-led community teaching garden. The "QD Garden" was a dream born out of a horizontally-organized program called 'Queering DIY', where a group of a dozen or so enbies got together with the dream of co-creating a community teaching garden and Thirdspace. This garden, and Operation: StoneBench, is headquartered at west side San Antonio's premiere queer-owned space for "M.E. T.I.M.E." (Mindful embodiment through inspired mutual exchange). Our dream is for this garden to be a queer safe haven for TGNC + allies, that makes food sovereignty and green space accessible to our community in San Antonio. In recognizing that everyone has their own role to play in as we work towards collective liberation, this Garden is our offering to the collective, as we practice:

1) Permaculture & Food Soverignty, as we learn to navigate today's changing economic + ecologic climates

2) Horizontally-organized community programming, as we work together & see ourselves as a part of "it all"

3) Normalizing accessible green spaces for introverts & neurospicy community members who are recharged by more quiet, interactive, curiousity-based convenings centered around connectivity, rather than by loud marketplaces or club environments centered around consuming

4) Normalizing spacemaking that feels more inclusive for the TGNC & intersectional community

Together, we are co-creating acessible green space where we can tap into the medicine of nature, while strengthening relationship with the land and food we eat, as we learn together to practice food sovereignty.

Most of the QD Garden's supplies (shovels, rakes, wood for planter boxes, pots, mulch, seedlings, etc) have already been generously donated by community members. With them, along with much love, we've already built the garden beds, and now its time for the fun part: being IN the garden we’ve built! With global warming making central Texas' summer heat more unbearable, we are finding we need a place to sit in the shade, and that it would be great to have a place to store all of these generously donated garden supplies.

For just a few dollars, you can become a part of the literal foundation this community garden, which will last for years to come! <3

We have designed plans for a beautiful and sturdy cinderblock-based storage bench; all we need now is some lumber and some cinderblocks (…I know I know, cinderblock is not a brick but “brick” is just so much more iconic— so for all intensive purposes, for this fundraiser, we’re calling cinderblocks “bricks”. Get into it. hair flip).

This will not only make the community garden much more usable and better for hosting gatherings and garden days, but our garden stewards & community members will love you all the more for it; our plan is to put the bench under the shade, and if we have enough left over, we plan to put up some shade cloth to protect us and our new plant babies from the central Texas sun’s intense summer heat.

By sponsoring a brick (or several), you’ll be helping us co-create a new seating and storage area, allowing us to spend more time in the garden, convene more often with community, establish a healthier + more abundant food source, which will overall increase our capacity to take on the many battles we are collectively fighting not only as queer people but as global citizens.

We already have about 8 cinderblocks and estimate we’ll need about 30 more, plus the lumber for the frames and seat or “lid” of the storage boxes, and of course, paint, to protect the longevity of the wood. All in all, project StoneBench will cost around $250-$320, but the more we raise, the more improvements we can make to the garden, including adding shade cloth to protect the new babes we're nurtnering!

🎯 FUNDRAISING GOALS✨:

GOAL 1: $250-$320 for Operation: "StoneBench": Materials for the construction of a cinderblock storage box and seating combination:

➜ $70 covers 32 “bricks” (cinderblocks) — we have a minimum of 40 needed for the current simple design, but the more the merrier!

➜ $126 - $200 covers lumber for two 5.67’x2’x2’ storage box frames and wooden lid. — ($126 covers the framing and lid, $200 covers wooden sides for the boxes.)

➜ $50 covers paint / stain — not fully required, but paint will help protect the longetivy of the structure - PLUS, using protection is sexy! (:

GOAL 2 — $230 for Operation: "Sa-SHADE Away": Materials for installing shade cloth & lighting over the garden, to protect the seedlings, and make the garden more garden-able in the TX heat:

➜ $60 covers one 9.5 x26’ shade cloth

➜ $30 covers planters used as base for the posts (TBD)

➜ $40 covers cement

➜ $50 wood posts (either 6 rounded posts or 4 square posts)

➜ $50 covers 100ft solar lights (for evening garden events)

Sponsor A Brick for Operation: StoneBench