Planting seeds while growing community

The Catholic Charities community garden has shed such a positive light on our neighbors, staff, and community.”

Community gardens have long been recognized for their multifaceted benefits, from fostering a sense of community to providing fresh produce and promoting environmental sustainability.

We at Catholic Charities have taken this concept to heart with our thriving community garden. 

It started with the food pantry, methods for sustainability were a top priority when establishing our pantry and how we wanted it to operate.

Reuse and Recycle has become a big part of what I like to call “pantry life.”

The two main ways we establish this are by recycling all our cardboard (and trust me we see a LOT of cardboard here!).

While the capacity that we recycle is a small portion of the world’s cardboard, we feel better at the end of the day knowing that we are not contributing to the massive landfills.

The second way we practice sustainability is by composting all the produce that comes through our pantry when it is no longer safe for our neighbors to consume.

When we first started composting it would be taken to a composting facility offsite, which for our small team was not the most efficient use of time. 

Turns out that a viable solution was not far away, when a volunteer requested if they could take the compost and maintain it on the property, this volunteer already had experience with composting.

When the idea of a community garden was presented, the goal was to incorporate our composted soil into the garden.

Once we had our first garden bed built our composted soil was incorporated and we saw the benefits right away.

Cut to the present where we now have 11 garden boxes built with the generous help of our network of volunteers.

These boxes have allowed our neighbors to grow, harvest and enjoy the fruits of their labor at their own dinner tables.

Many of our neighbors are housed within low-income housing complexes with minimal or no access to grow their own produce.

Our community garden fills that gap and opens opportunities to foster healthy lifestyles and habits.

Another essential resource that helps ensure our garden’s success is our partners at MU Extension.

Dawn Sebion, the Nutrition Program Associate at MU Extension spearheads education classes for our neighbors involved in the community garden.

“We want our participants to know how to stretch their dollars and gardening is one of the ways they can do that. They can purchase seeds and plants with their SNAP benefits so teaching them that they can use that resource for those kinds of purchases too. For example, instead of buying one tomato, they can purchase a plant and have an abundance of tomatoes.”

For Dawn, the gardening class is not just about planting the seeds, but also showing neighbors the firsthand benefits of their hard work, “the goal is once the plants in the garden start producing, we then will harvest those items and begin to create recipes with the produce, to then teach the neighbors how to use what they are growing in their own kitchens.” 

The Catholic Charities community garden has shed such a positive light on our neighbors, staff, and community.

It has provided a hands-on connection with nature, a safe space that is peaceful for the minds of the weary, sustainability and thoughtfulness for our environment, and a place to see neighbors and their hard work flourish and grow.

Community gardens are more than just plots of land; they are vibrant expressions of community resilience and empowerment.

By bringing people together promoting environmental stewardship, and providing economic opportunities, these grassroots initiatives have a transformative impact on the neighborhoods across the globe.

As we cultivate our gardens, we sow the seeds of social connection, environmental sustainability, and economic empowerment, nurturing stronger, healthier, and more resilient communities for generations to come.

In the words of Margaret Mead “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.”

For Dawn, it has been beneficial to her both professionally and personally stating, “It has been fun for me personally, getting to see the smiles on their faces when we are there. They get to see the plants grow and ask questions about gardening while working and learning together.”

Through the simple act of gardening, individuals come together to create positive change in their communities, one plant at a time.