50 Cent and actress/singer Bette Midler made for an unlikely team yesterday at the grand opening of the Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson Community Garden at Baisley Park in Queens, N.Y., according to MTV News.
“I Love 50!” shouted Midler during the ceremony, whose own New York Restoration Project got 50’s G-Unity Foundation involved with the project.
“We own 60 of these community gardens,” explained Midler about her collaboration with 50. “We looked all over town for a group that was interested in these sorts of things. We found G-Unity, which is Curtis’ foundation. They were interested.”
For 50 Cent, it was an opportunity to directly affect his native neighborhood and the children now growing up there. “This is a hell of an opportunity, for me to collaborate with Bette,” he said. “It was an opportunity for me to do something for the actual kids in the community. We’re gonna make it happen the way we been making it happen, right here.”
According to gunityfoundation.org, 50 Cent granted $150,000 over a two year period to restore Baisley Park in order to create the outdoor children’s learning garden. The garden features flowers, a vegetable garden, a community area where people can have barbecues and a rainwater-collection system.
50 Cent promised more initiatives like the community garden in the future, including 50’s First Annual 40 Day, an event mainly geared towards the people who live in and around the Queens’ South Jamaica Houses, also known as the 40 Projects. Baisley Day, an official celebration of the opening of the Baisley Park, is also in the works.
