News
Email
Print
Church turning eyesore into a garden
Donations of seeds, plants and labor will help elderly and needy
Monica Young Photo
Volunteers work on transforming an empty, trash-filled lot where low-income apartments once stood into a community garden.
ADVERTISEMENT
Published: May 31, 2009
KERNERSVILLE
Six scraggly trees, bricks, glass and refuse filled the empty lot across the street from Main Street United Methodist Church in Kernersville.
Some saw an eyesore where low-income apartments once stood.
Mary Jac Brennan saw potential.
A member of the MSUMC board of trustees, Brennan attended the March meeting with the idea of turning the space into a church-sponsored community garden.
Brennan had read an article in the Winston-Salem Journal's religion section in February about the Anathoth Community Garden in Cedar Grove and thought her church "could do something similar."
However, she worried that the other trustees would find her idea farfetched.
Instead, they embraced the concept and began brainstorming ways to make it happen.
Soon after, Brennan, an environmental-science teacher at East Forsyth High School and former landscape designer, received a phone call from fellow church member Billie Cole.
"Billie called and asked if I knew anything about community gardens," Brennan said, with a laugh at the coincidence.
Cole had read the same article, and the concept was discussed in her Sunday school class.
"Our class decided we wanted to try this, but no one knew how to go about it so we called Mary Jac," Cole said.
Eight people attended the garden's organizational meeting April 8.
A week later they had removed the six trees, old wires, dropped limbs and trash from the empty lot next door.
Church member Wayne Knox brought his tractor and prepared the half-acre space. The rocky red clay was tilled and amended with compost donated by the Town of Kernersville.
A local farm and garden store donated some tomato plants to get the garden started. A foundation that supports sustainable agriculture donated seeds.
Rows of green beans and squash soon joined the young tomato plants. Healthy green leaves began to punctuate the mounds of black dirt dotting the red clay. Peas, okra, cucumbers for pickling and cucumbers for slicing will soon join cantaloupe, eggplant and peppers. Bright sunflowers and zinnias will border the garden perimeter.
Produce will be shared by those who have volunteered in the garden and be given to community shut-ins, typically elderly people who have limited transportation and limited income. Brennan said that they plan to share the anticipated abundance with Crisis Control and the Second Harvest Food Bank.
"The response has been tremendous. One day a lady stopped and said that she attends Sedge Garden United Methodist and that they have a garden, too. She gave us great ideas about how to create harvesting teams from small groups and classes within the church," Brennan said.
The committee plans to bring church preschool children over to the garden to teach them about gardening firsthand. Pumpkins may be planted to be harvested in conjunction with the annual church pumpkin patch.
Brennan envisions a garden shed being built, a potential Eagle Scout project for the church's Boy Scout troop.
"The economy was a big reason we thought about this. The timing was right, and it's a way to give back to the community," Brennan said.
Cole agreed but added that the garden wasn't just economically beneficial but environmentally wholesome as well.
"This allows us to eat and share organic food grown locally," Cole said. "And more importantly, on a spiritual level, we're being good stewards of the land and sharing our bounty."
■ Monica Young can be reached at cyoung9@triad.rr.com.
Email
Print
