Join us to meet community members at Hill Street Community Garden in Staten Island to sip tea, write the Odes to Common Things Poetry, and work with local visual artist Mona Chehadi for the Garden Story Stones: Painting Our Roots.

Community members of all ages will paint stones with symbols, plants, animals, or images that reflect their personal stories, cultural heritage, or dreams for the garden. These painted stones will then be placed along garden paths, creating a colorful and meaningful mosaic trail that tells the story of the community.

FREE event! All are welcome!

About Mona Chehadi:

Visual artist and educator known for her vibrant mixed-media creations and innovative teaching methods. With a background in graphic design and education, Mona blends her passion for creativity with her commitment to empowering others through art. She inspires students of all ages to explore their artistic potential and embrace self-expression. Mona’s work often explores themes of identity, nature, and social justice, inviting viewers to engage in meaningful dialogue and reflection. As an advocate for arts education, she believes in the transformative power of creativity to foster empathy, critical thinking, and positive change in society.

About Robin Lampman:

Robin Lampman is a published poet and an educator with 35 years of experience teaching in universities, high schools, and elementary schools. She has a Master’s Degree in Bilingual Education and has taught literature in two languages in the public schools in New Mexico, Texas, and New York as well as at the University of Monterrey in Mexico and the American School of Madrid in Spain. She has also taught English as a Second Language to adults at the University of Texas in Austin and at the El Paso Community College in El Paso. Texas. She produced a volume of poetry by eighth graders in East Harlem which was funded by the National Endowment for the Arts and published by the Big Read. For the last several years she has been teaching writing classes for The Noble Maritime Collection. She developed and taught an adult class on Poetic Forms and taught classes on the reading and writing of literature in two languages. Robin is currently teaching a class on writing poetry at the Hill Street Community Garden as well as conducting the Shakespeare Reading Group at Art on the Terrace. She is Editor in Chief of Unspoken Word, an online international literary magazine, and she is Director of Poetry and Tea for Tea Arts and Culture.

This program is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council.

Private support is provided by City Parks Foundation and Partnerships for Parks through the NYC Green Fund.

Special thanks to: