By Kamora Herrington, Founder & Visionary of Kamora’s Cultural Corner
The Sterling Street Sanctuary and Nature Reserve is the physical home of our work… the Learning Lab where cultural humility is practiced in real time.”
I’m writing this on April 19th, the morning after our first 2026 gathering at the Sterling Street Sanctuary and Nature Reserve; April Thinking and Doing Day, and it feels great to say that The Land is open again. I’m Kamora Herrington, founder of Kamora’s Cultural Corner, a Hartford-based organization rooted in cultural humility, somatic abolitionism and community care.
For the past several years, I’ve been working alongside community members, artists, educators, and neighbors to build spaces with and for other folks where people can slow down, be in relationship, and learn how to live and work across difference in real ways. And in 2020 I began creating ‘our’ 3rd space, The Sterling Street Sanctuary and Nature Reserve; the physical home of that work and the Learning Lab for Kamora’s Cultural Corner, where cultural humility is practiced in real time through the land, the relationships, and the people who show up, return, and stay connected.
If you’ve lived in the North End for any amount of time, you may know the Sterling Street Sanctuary and Nature Reserve as the old Sealtest parking lot, or just another empty lot for outsiders to get rid of their refuse. If you don’t know 75 Sterling Street, you’ve walked past spaces like it. You’ve watched people treat our neighborhoods like dumping grounds. You’ve seen pick-up trucks pulling up, unloading trash, and pulling off like nobody lives here. Or worse, like those of us who do live here don’t care and don’t matter. Over the last 6 years we’ve been transforming our space while also addressing the deepest root causes for the conditions that lead to these empty lots throughout our city.
Yesterday morning, we started the day with Earth Day volunteers from Knox who came through ready to work. They cleared out a lot of what had built up over the winter; trash, debris, the usual mix of things that show up in spaces like ours. It was hard work, and they did a good job of setting the stage for the rest of the day.
From there, we moved into our weekly food giveaway and at 1pm, Thinking and Doing Day began. (Thinking and Doing Days are our bi-monthly community social justice service-learning projects designed to bring diverse communities together and build and strengthen existing connections.)
We started with KCC BINGO, which gives folks a way to meet each other, move through and explore the space, and ask questions that start conversations. By the time we gathered for our opening conversation, people weren’t strangers anymore. That’s the point.
The theme of the day was Opening the Gardens and (Re)Connecting with Our Communities. People who have been with us for years came back like they never left. Folks who hadn’t been on the land since last summer walked in and picked up where they left off back in November and a whole group of new folks came through, looking around, asking questions, bringing ideas, and imagining new and different ways for communities to be and support each other. It was a wonderful day where we got to practice what we preach and celebrate 6 years of Thinking and Doing Days and 7 years on Sterling Street.
While a lot of folks know that the Sterling Street Sanctuary and Nature Reserve exists, and that we host community events, not as many know how this space came to be, what it is now or what it’s growing to be.
Back in 2019, Kamora’s Cultural Corner started building community through conversation, art, and cultural humility work across Hartford. When the opportunity came to take responsibility for this land; a blighted, contaminated lot in the North End, we said yes knowing that transforming it ethically and responsibly for the care and use of Black folks would take time. So we slowed down, focused on the vision and began creating this 3rd Space for Rest, Relaxation and Contemplation for Black folks in the North End of Hartford (and our friends and families.)
Since then, we’ve been building slowly; planting gardens, building gazebos, gathering, camping and creating the labyrinth that now sits at the center of the space as a place to slow down and practice being in relationship with ourselves and each other.
“The real work is in the returning.”
Everything you see at the Sanctuary has come together through community; through people showing up, returning, and staying connected long enough for something to grow. The Sterling Street Sanctuary and Nature Reserve is a Third Space. It’s not home, it’s not work, it’s not school. It’s somewhere you can come and just be. A space where we practice thinking about community, and being in community, together, at the same time.
Thinking and Doing Days are one way we practice that, but they’re not the whole story.
The real work is in the returning after T&D Day. It’s in the everyday moments that happen when we’re just chillin’ at the Labyrinth, in the conversations that don’t need to lead to agreement, and in the relationships that take time to build. It’s in the willingness to stay, even when our differences seem bigger than our commitments to ‘diversity’.
What we are creating on Sterling Street is kind of bizarre and completely intentional. Beautiful flower and herb gardens, a labyrinth, open space and conversation nooks all designed with and for Black folks in mind. It’s a place to rest, relax, rejuvenate, and contemplate in a world that doesn’t often make room for that.
And now, the gardens are open. Not only for events, it’s just open. You can come sit for a few minutes or stay for a while. You can walk the labyrinth, stop by on Saturdays for the food giveaway, come to a Thinking and Doing Day, or simply come through and see what’s here. You don’t need to have it figured out, just come.
“The revolution is here… and so is the pause.”
To paraphrase Ruha Benjamin and Bishop Desmond Tutu; We are learning how to imagine and craft the worlds we cannot live without, while letting go of the ones we cannot live within. We are learning how to be with one another—not because we are the same, but because we need each other.
This is the first in a somewhat sporadic series about what’s happening on Sterling Street. I’ll be sharing why we built the Labyrinth, why our signs say that Black People are Fabulous and hopefully answering any questions you may have about cultural humility, somatic abolition. The Sterling Street Sanctuary and Nature Reserve or anything else you’d like to know. I’m looking forward to inviting you to events AND introducing you to our practices and foundation; how we build, how we slow down, and how we stay in relationship with each other in a time that is asking a lot from all of us.
If you’ve been meaning to come through, this is your invitation.
Come be a part of what we’re growing.
You can visit our website at: www.kamorasculturalcorner.com or sign-up for our newsletters at: https://tinyurl.com/MailMeKCC
