Parish community gardens provide food and friendship
By Tim Puet
Catholic Times
Parishioners and neighbors at Columbus St. James the Less Church are showing that crops aren’t the only thing which can flourish through planting a garden.
“We started a garden last year and found that besides the food we got from it, it produced a real sense of community,” parishioner Frank Lesko said.
“People in the neighborhood who lived here for years and never knew each other have become friends because they’ve been working together in the garden,” said Joan Kazandjian, who like Lesko is involved in the Columbus Catholic Worker movement, a prayer community based in the old St. James convent.
The garden at St. James is located behind the church in what had been a group of baseball fields which had sat idle and almost forgotten for several years until last spring. Other community gardens in the diocese which are coming to life again as the spring planting season begins are located at the Bishop Griffin Center and the Community of Holy Rosary and St. John the Evangelist in Columbus, Danville St. Luke Church, and the Church of the Ascension in Johnstown.
In addition, volunteers from the diocese will be helping again this year with gardening activities at Shepherd’s Corner, the ecology center run by the Dominican Sisters of Peace on the eastern edge of Franklin County in the Gahanna area.
Lesko said the idea of converting the old ballfields had been on several people’s minds. “We started talking about it at the Catholic Worker house, and pretty soon we found about 10 people in the parish and around the neighborhood had been thinking about the same thing,” he said.
About 20 to 25 people began working a half-acre plot when planting began last year. There was no fee to participate, and participants got to choose the amount of garden space they wanted to tend. They kept part of what they grew for themselves and gave a portion to be used by the St. Vincent de Paul Society, the parish food pantry, and the Catholic Worker house.
“Some people had thought these fields would never produce anything but mud, but the gardeners grew green beans, corn, zucchini, and some sizable tomatoes,” Lesko said.
Kirk Fisher of the Catholic Worker house said plans for this year are to double the size of the garden to more than an acre because the number of participants is increasing to 35 to 40. He said more land is available should interest continue to increase. Kazandjian said there also are plans for canning classes so people can preserve some of the items they grow.
Marge Telerski of the Bishop Griffin Center on the Christ the King Church campus said the center’s St. Vincent de Paul Family Life Garden is going into its third year. It has produced more than 1,500 pounds of food in its first two years, all of which goes to the pantry at the center. This year, for the first time, volunteers are being invited to work on all 22 beds at the site.
“We grow the type of crops which meet the needs of our clients,” Telerski said. “They have expressed a preference for greens, so we grow mustard greens, collard greens, kale, and Swiss chard. All these are foods high in vitamin A, and that’s important for several diabetic clients we serve. We also grow a lot of peppers, tomatillos, and tomatoes for the Latino community, as well as winter and summer squash, head lettuce, and other vegetables.”
Sponsors for the garden include Franklin Park Conservatory, Scott’s Growing to Green program, the Columbus Foundation, and Dill’s Greenhouse, which has a garden of its own where corn, cucumbers, cabbage, broccoli, herbs, and other items are grown for the Griffin center.
“Our family went to Christ the King while growing up and is happy to work with the center because we know how hard it is for people going to the pantry there to find fresh vegetables,” said Kelly Dill, retail manager at the greenhouse. “It’s so important to be able to have a healthful diet, and fresh food is a big part of that.”
The Griffin center pantry and other pantries in the area also receive leftover items each week from the farm market at Shepherd’s Corner. Last year, more than 7,000 pounds of food was produced on the four acres used for gardening at the ecology center, with more than 4,000 pounds going to pantries.
“That was an unusual case,” said Sister Rose Ann Van Buren, OP, Shepherd’s Corner administrator. “Usually we give about 30 percent of what we produce to the pantries and keep 70 percent for our market or for sale to restaurants. That’s what we plan to do again this year because we need to improve our financial sustainability.”
Shepherd’s Corner has been owned by the Dominicans for about 40 years and has been an ecology center for 17 years. It has four full-time and about the same number of part-time employees, plus a substantial number of volunteers. Besides the garden, which does not use chemicals, it also has a pasture for sheep, a yard for turkeys and chickens, and four beehives.
In addition, it conducts about 50 educational programs every year for young people and adults and serves as a site for retreats.
Father F, Richard Snoke, pastor at Danville St. Luke, said it’s about time for him to get back to his greenhouse on the church property and prepare vegetables to be planted. “I don’t want to start too early, but I’m about ready,” he said. “The first vegetables have to be planted no later than the end of May.” Those vegetables include tomatoes, cabbage, cucumbers, melons, and sweet potatoes.
Father Snoke grew up on a Fairfield County farm and has been planting gardens at St. Luke every year since he came to Danville in 1987. He has two garden plots elsewhere in the community and a small garden on the church plots. At one time, he had five gardens, but cut back after hip replacement surgery in 2003.
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