About Wake Up The Earth Festival – Plant Sale

Celebrate the arrival of spring and the success of the grassroots movement around the defeat of I-95 and building of the Southwest Corridor parkway in Jamaica Plain at the Wake Up the Earth Festival. This land includes The Southwest Corridor Communiy Farm, on of our Trustees gardens. Our team will be tabling at the festival and selling native plants from our native perennial nursery, City Natives.

The first Wake Up the Earth Festival took place in 1979 on land that had been cleared for the Highway (I-95) during the late sixties but which fortunately was stopped by a strong grassroots movement embodied in the South-West Corridor Coalition. Close to Jackson Square along Lamartine Street, a community garden and greenhouse (The Farm) were built on the rubble left by the demolition that had already started and the Festival served as a celebration of the defeat of the highway. It was an attempt to bring together the different communities that lived on both sides of the (then) wall and railroad tracks, in celebration of spring and an appreciation of the piece of earth that was saved. The music, performances, banners, parades, and celebrations spring from the diversity of Roxbury and Jamaica Plain.

Wake Up The Earth — Spontaneous Celebrations