8centric was formed in the summer of 2008 by volunteers who are all proponents of community-oriented work. We have identified unaddressed problems in the Boston Chinatown community that could be remedied with zero to minimum cost and completely volunteer-operated by a large pool of volunteers from local colleges and working professionals. We partner with existing neighborhood organizations to create innovative projects that address ongoing disparities that affect our community. The objective of 8centric is to develop community leaders by identifying social issues and creating an effective strategy to address them in order to create a positive change.

We have a vegetable garden growing amongst the 150+ plots at the Berkeley Gardens. The idea behind community gardens is to give its urban residents an opportunity to grow plants/vegetables since lands are scarce within the city. Here at 8centric, we open up our plot to our volunteers and donate our produce back to the Chinatown community. The video below shows how the garden could potentially look like by the end of July 2010.

The garden is located on 217 Harrison Ave. It was mostly bare with the exception of one 40+ year old bush that was reaching the end of its life. Any underutilized land is likely to become a dump site. 8centric brought together a team of volunteers to transform this 85 sf land into a garden oasis with perennials and low-maintenance plants. The project was completed with about 20 volunteer hours.