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Recognizing the substantial contributions of Amy Laura Cahn, and the Garden Justice Legal Initiative she founded, to the City of Philadelphia and her dedication to the empowerment of communities through community control of land, sustainable and equitable urban gardening and farming, and the pursuit of environmental justice.
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WHEREAS, Amy Laura Cahn has been fighting for equitable and community-led environmental policy and practice for her entire career, often with a human rights lens, from her work in New York City to overturn lead laws impacting children's health to her work in New Orleans against racial disparity in flood protection and relief following Hurricane Katrina; and
WHEREAS, As a student at the University of Pennsylvania Law School, Cahn founded the Penn Environmental Law Project, which allowed students to engage in real-world policy analysis and legal advocacy work, and began working for the Public Interest Law Center where she produced a documentary on the fight to close the Pennhurst State School and Hospital, a landmark civil and disability rights case; and
WHEREAS, Cahn, with support from the Skadden Foundation, started the Garden Justice Legal Initiative at the Public Interest Law Center, through which she has helped to transform law and policy applicable to urban gardening and farming, and has provided legal advice and representation to countless community gardeners and growers across the City seeking land access or permanency; and
WHEREAS, Cahn has helped lead the "Healthy Food Green Spaces" coalition to ensure that Philadelphia's zoning code was compatible with local urban gardens and farms, and to ensure that the Land Bank and its policies recognize gardening and farming as vital activities to transform vacant and abandoned properties, and has ultimately transformed how City agencies view gardens and farms, from merely an interim use to understanding them an important features of community health and wellbeing; and...
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