Church Gardening, The Record

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Record Volume 20, No. 8 August 2009

• Deputation, Bishop reflect on General Convention, pages 3a, 14a• Convention affirms commitment to Anglican Communion, page 5a• President Bonnie Anderson addresses ECW Triennial, page 4a

A diocesan edition of Episcopal Life

T h e

A Special Section:

The AUGUST issue

of

The Record

Find us on the Webwww.the-record.org

Special Section on Church Gardening

by Herb Gunn

In This Issue

St. Paul’s, Brighton. has developeda community-based program of

environmentally sustainable gardening to provide fresh produce to GleanersCommunity Food Bank of SoutheastMichigan and Fish & Loaves Commu-nity Meals Program.

G3 (God. Growing. Giving.) is asubcommittee of the St. Paul’s Peace& Social Justice Committee and helpsgrow a variety of fresh fruits and

vegetables at the church and at nearby Emrich Retreat Center.

“Gleaners provides free food toapproximately 900 people a monthin Livingston County” said JoannéeDeBruhl, director of the program.

“Fresh produce is desperately neededand our intention is to do something that impacts our community especially during difficult times.”

On May 30, planting day for the

G3 Garden Project, a group of 24 vol-unteers gathered to plant the gardensat St. Paul’s and EmrichRetreat Center. “A total of 704 seed-

lings and 1,882 seeds were planted,”said DeBruhl. “We moved 67,500pounds of compost, 3,680 poundsof manure, and 280 pounds of peatmoss one wheel barrow at a time.”

The G3 Garden Project includesa pair of “Listening Benches” onthe grounds of St. Paul’s. “The ideabehind the ‘Listening Benches’ isto give the many people who walk by the church a place to rest and tolisten for God,” said Deon Johnson,rector at St. Paul’s. “People have a lotof things on their hearts and minds

right now and our hope is to create aplace to recapture a bit of spirituality in the heart of downtown.”

St. Paul’s plants food & faith in Brighton

Owen Rosinksi digging in his heels.



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The Record//Episcopal Life

August 2009

Detroit’s harvest of hardshipand The Spirit of HopeDetroit’s harvest of hardshipand The Spirit of Hope

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If there’s a canary in the mine-shaft of the U.S. economiccrisis, it is Spirit of Hope

Episcopal/Lutheran congregationin Detroit. Worshipping at a six-way intersection of a number of thingsthat don’t work in the city, parish-ioners of the church—formerly

Trinity Episcopal Church—and itspastor, Matthew Bode, note thatthe neighborhood is so hard hit by decades of neglect, the collapse of the mortgage and financial marketsis scarcely felt.

“Detroit has been in economicdecline for as long as I can remem-ber,” said longtime neighbor and

new member of the church KateDevlin. “Now new people are facing the challenges that poor people haveknown all along.”

“The decline of so many insoutheast Michigan has awakened anew awareness of the plight of thepoor,” agreed Bode.

As result, some of what the pa-rishioners of Spirit of Hope do forsurvival’s sake is now called innova-tive ministry, and catching on as analternative economic model during hard times.

Entering a third season, Spirit of Hope has launched an urban farmproject between the Sunshine Com-munity Preschool playscape, whichhas been located at the church for25 years, and an empty lot wherea drug house burned down. Underthe direction of Devlin, a mastergardener and local artist, the churchcultivates a variety of vegetables onthe raised beds that are necessary because the plot sits near the formersite of an old gasoline station thatleached toxins into the neighbor-hood topsoil. The beds were built

from the flotsam and jetsam of ur-ban life: junked tires, discarded milk crates, scrap chicken wire and brick.

“One thing Detroit has a lotof are tires. Mountains of tires,”said Devlin, who constructed alabyrinth-like spiral with them. Thechurch also does composting andmaintains an orchard of small fruittrees.

Bode explains that the projectgoals are three-fold: To be anevangelical and visual presence on adesolate corner of the city; to helpsupply the church’s food pantry

and once-a-week soup kitchen with

healthy food; and to teach peoplehow to grow their own food.

“It is easier and cheaper to geta bottle of beer than an apple ortomato in this neighborhood,” Bodesaid.

Bode said the urban farm projectplans to acquire an ice-cream truck,retrofit the vehicle for bio-fuel, andthen “drive around the city and sell

vegetables, baked goods, or what-ever other kinds of income-generat-ing nutritious food-stuffs that localresidents want to sell to make extraincome. We call it an ‘alternativeeconomy.’ The idea seems morecooperative and Jesus-centered than

the corporate economy we all de-pend upon too much.”

Bode acknowledges that whilethe economic impact may be mod-est, the project makes a social justicestatement as well. The Detroitstreets surrounding the church arelittered with liquor bottles that thegardeners pick up to decorate aBottle Tree. The African tradition,

which crossed the Atlantic withthe slave trade, holds that coloredbottles strewn in trees capture theevil spirits that then dissipate during the night. While the folktale may

not square with Christian theology,Spirit of Hope’s Bottle Tree doesattract attention to the garden andthe church’s vitality on an otherwiseblighted block.

Furthermore, the Bottle Tree andhardscrabble garden itself stand instark contrast to the silhouette of the

Motor City Casino that towers onthe urban horizon above the churchas a beacon of false hope. Promotedtwo decades ago as a linchpin thecity’s economic revival, Detroit’scasinos are not unlike the church’sBottle Tree and lead-laced yard— containers of evil spirits, all— but

without a redemptive release.

For Bode, the Parable of theSower comes to mind. “We have

seeds that are falling on rocky andcontaminated soil. If they found soillike this in affluent neighborhoods,they scrape and carry it away andmake it someone else’s problem. But

we can’t move people out. So how do we make it healthy and livablefor people here? How do we use soilthat has been unjustly contaminatedfor God’s purpose? That’s the chal-lenge for the Spirit of Hope.”

by Herb Gunn

Matthew Bode and Kate DevlinMotor City Casino in Detroit

Garden at Spirit of Hope Episcopal/Lutheran Church ghg

Candlewick Press is giving us a beautiful, brand-new vision of gardening as a metaphor for nurturing world peace.It all starts one seed at a time, one vine at a time, one set of friends at a time. The book is called A Child’s Garden:

A Story of Hope by Michael Foreman. The book is available through the Cathedral Bookshop.

What I love about Foreman’s new picturebook is that it echoes conflict zones around the world. The little boy whobegins the story in a dark, rubble-strewn hovel could be living in regions of eastern Europe now—or perhaps back during World War II. He could be living in the Middle East or in a Latin American conflict zone. It’s a startlingly beautiful fable that could be set many places around the world.

The whole point in exploring the pages of A Child’s Garden is to see the black-white-and-gray hopelessness give way to the brilliant colors of vines, flowers, friends and eventually songbirds, too!

As is the case with most Candlewick books, I think Foreman’s new story is just masquerading as a children’s book.I’d buy it for yourself, for good friends, for any children you know. Read it with anyone who cares about peace andneeds a few colorful rays of hope in this ominous springtime of turbulent change.

[Reviewed by David Crumm and reprinted with permission. Read www.ReadTheSpirit.com]

BO

OK

REVIEW

A Child’s Garden: A Story of Hopeby Michael Foreman

(Candlewick Press, May 2009)



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August 2009 9a

Trinity, Belleville, children’s garden raisesmoney, consciousness

The Children’s Heifer Garden

& Market at Trinity, Belle- ville, began five years ago

as part of the children’s worshipsummer program. The childrenbegan growing vegetables in thechurch garden to sell to parishionersto raise money for Heifer Interna-tional, a program that provides farmanimals as a means of self-reliancefor people living in poverty aroundthe world.

“Whatever money they raise they choose what their money buys,”said Trinity member Barb Watson,

who works with the children in thegarden. “They really understand theconcept of what it’s about. A parentsays, ‘Let’s give grandma a gift,’ andthey say, ‘Can we give her a flock of chickens?’ It’s an educationalprogram rather than about feeding the hungry.”

The children’s garden usually

raises around $500 over the sum-mer—enough for a water buffaloone year. “We do it all by dona-tions,” said Watson. “If somebody can only afford a quarter for a cu-cumber, someone else may pay $2.Some donate generously knowing that it’s going to this project.”

On any Sunday, between 10 and25 children weed and harvest in thegarden, which was expanded thisyear to double in size—now 25-by-50-feet. It includes 14 raised beds.“Raised beds makes it so much

easier to work with kids,” Watsonsaid, adding that during the summermost of the children are betweenthree and nine years old. “Before it

was ‘don’t step on the vegetables.’ The raised beds are defined morefor them.”

Trinity, Belleville’s children raise produce, and money, for Heifer International.

M

erilynne Rush’s enthu-siasm was catching. A

member of St. Andrew’s, Ann Arbor, Rush proposed a com-munity garden last November, andat the first meeting, 10 people came.“There were people there I didn’teven know and I’ve been going tothe church for 22 years,” Rush said.“I thought gardening was something people might come out for whenthey wouldn’t come to anything else.It’s about working in the dirt, grow-ing things, stewardship of earth, andtaking care of creation.”

The biggest challenge at St.

Andrew’s is that it’s a downtownparish, with no obvious locationfor a garden. “We had to be really creative with that, deciding what wecould do and where,” Rush said,adding that to move forward they had to do “community building,negotiation and delicate communi-cation,” since the space they pro-posed sharing was the space knownas the children’s play yard, which

was already fenced in and on thenorth side of the church. Obviously successful at building bridges, they received vestry approval in March

and broke ground a week later.

An artist in the parish “had astrong interest in orchestrating thebuilding of raised beds,” said Rush.

Volunteers built them, movedcompost in, and planted everything during a work day at the end of

April. That sounds easy but Rushadmits there was a strong founda-tion of work going on in the wintermonths—“the seeds being plantedbefore the actually fruition,” shesaid. Before starting the project, sheand three fellow gardeners took afive-week course at Growing Hope,

during which they learned about allthe aspects of not only building butsustaining a community garden.

Despite some concerns over theamount of sun their selected spot

would receive, they decided they could build four, four-by-eight-footraised beds, for a total of 128 squarefeet. “That’s not huge, but starting

with this size increases our chanceof success in the first year,” she said.

The church is undergoing renova-tion, so there may be other pos-

sible areas around the property for

“another raised bed or two.”

Research across the country hasshown that when people are caring for an area, the level of community responsibility and concern is in-creased, and vandalism goes down,Rush said.

“People walk by and say ‘Hey,how can I help?’ and this has beencomforting to people who were

worried about the misuse of thespace,” she said.

They plan to install a sign aboutdonations going to Food Gatherersto further build awareness. “It’s asmall enough area to involve more

than the parish—and we have lotsof ideas for future projects.”

Chief among those ideas, “if we thought we could sustain it,”Rush said, is a large community garden—with increased produc-tion (and increased donations of food), gardening education activi-ties to teach people how to garden,and children’s activities. “This fall

we’ll evaluate this year and then talk about next year.”

Good record keeping is essen-tial for evaluation and planning

The hope is also that the children will grow to feel ownership of thegarden as they get older, and thatthey will involve their families.

The expanded garden will pro-

vide for more of a vegetable marketfor the congregation, said memberand gardener Stacie Dubin. “Ourhope is to use the garden to educateabout eating locally grown food, inaddition to the lessons gained by

working with Heifer International.”

Plans are underway to bring ina farmer on Sunday mornings whocan sell fresh vegetables and fruitsto supplement what the children’sgarden grows. The church also plans

to encourage the whole congrega-tion to adopt more healthy lifestylesand teach healthy food preparation..

“We have this whole concept we’d like to develop,” Watson said.“If all goes well, we’ll expand it outinto the larger community.”

by Karen D. Bota

Volunteers, donations and faith make foodby Karen D. Bota

Nancy Heusal in the garden at St. Andrew’s, Ann Arbor.

Continued on page 13a



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August 2009

W ith Michigan’s unemploy-ment rate at 15.4 percent,the number of hungry

people is increasing as well. Churcheshave long taken up collections of

non-perishable foods for local andtheir own food pantries, but formany of the hungry, fresh f ruits and

vegetables are out of the question.Fresh produce often isn’t available tofood banks, and the cost at grocery stores make it prohibitive.

Responding to this dire situation,and understanding that fresh foodsare healthier alternatives to processedand packaged foods, many congre-gations in the Diocese of Michiganhave started or expanded commu-nity gardens in which they grow andgive away the yields to their hungry

neighbors.

These are some of their stories.

St. Paul’s, Brighton

St. Paul’s, Brighton, has developeda community-based program of en-

vironmentally sustainable gardening to provide fresh produce to GleanersCommunity Food Bank of SoutheastMichigan and Fish & Loaves Com-munity Meals Program.

G3 (God. Growing. Giving.) is asubcommittee of the St. Paul’s Peace& Social Justice Committee and

involves growing a variety of freshfruits and vegetables at the churchand at Emrich Retreat Center, aproperty of the Episcopal Diocese of Michigan.

“Gleaners provides free food toapproximately 900 people a monthin Livingston County,” said JoannéeDeBruhl, director of the program.“Fresh produce is desperately neededand our intention is to do something that impacts our community espe-cially during difficult times.”

“Our auto workers, from bluecollar to white collar, took a hit, and

the gardens have given a little bit of hope to people, when everything iscrashing down around them,” Parish

Administrator and church member Jenny Ritter said. “They have pur-pose and are able to contribute andit doesn’t cost but a little bit of time,

with great reward.”

In five weeks this spring, volun-teers put in 32 five-by-15-foot bedsat St. Paul’s and Emrich Retreat Cen-ter. On May 30, planting day for theG3 Garden Project, a group of 24

volunteers gathered to plant the gar-dens. “A total of 704 seedlings and

1,882 seeds were planted,” said De-Bruhl. “We moved 67,500 pounds of compost, 3,680 pounds of manure,and 280 pounds of peat moss one

wheel barrow at a time.” The church

has already delivered more than 16pounds of produce to Gleaners.

The G3 Garden Project includesa pair of “Listening Benches” onthe grounds of St. Paul’s. “The ideabehind the ‘Listening Benches’ isto give the many people who walk by the church a place to rest and tolisten for God,” said Deon Johnson,rector at St. Paul’s. “People have a lotof things on their hearts and mindsright now and our hope is to create aplace to recapture a bit of spirituality in the heart of downtown.”

The project has “opened up somany doorways for people to volun-teer their talents, from the church andthe community,” said Ritter, from

watering and weeding to deliver-ing food several times a week. Theparish’s Daughters of the King plansto bake zucchini bread to raise money for the congregation’s well building project in Malawi Africa. A volunteer-staffed booth at the Brighton Farm-ers Market raises funds and awareness

for the gardens and the well.“Farmers are donating some of

their fresh produce left over at theend of the day,” Ritter said. “We’vestarted something here.”

St. Barnabas, Chelsea

The garden at St. Barnabas beganthree years ago when “some of thepeople decided to get out frombehind the four walls of the churchand begin to live the Gospel in anoutward way,” said member andgarden volunteer David Glasser. “Wedecided being a small congregation,

the only thing that made sense to do was plant a garden.”

When volunteers began digging up the lawn, putting up a fence andplanting the garden, “it spurred otherpeople in the community to startthinking about what they could do to

alleviate hunger,” said Glasser. TheCity of Chelsea has donated space,students at the high school are talk-ing about starting a garden on school

property, and a number of other faithcommunities got involved.

“It’s kind of mushrooming, whichis really good,” Glasser said. “Eachchurch has land to put to use grow-ing rather than cutting and fertilizing it.”

The church had been donating all its produce to Food Gatherers. This year it joined forces with Faithand Food, and is growing the food

the organization requested: hardier vegetables that last longer, such assquash, broccoli, cabbage, beans, andRoma tomatoes, which don’t bruiseas easily as other types and are goodfor cooking.

“A number of us in Chelsea have

our own gardens, being a rural com-munity—some with acres, some withlittle plots. We plant a few extra rowsfor donation,” said Glasser. Otherpeople who have walked by or seenthe garden sign have dropped off produce from their own gardens andGlasser is happy to take it—he evenpicks it up at people’s homesif they ask—and drop it off at Food Gather-ers, which is near his office in Ann

Arbor.

Everybody in the congrega-tion takes part in the process, saidGlasser, from caring for the garden

to delivering the produce. “Somepeople donated plants, some helpedduring planting. They do whateverthey can do.”

In the winter, the congregationcollects canned goods and “keepsthis whole food ministry going,” saidGlasser. “It doesn’t matter how smallyou are; if all small churches putsomething together we can make ahuge dent. That the goal.

“It’s really important for us toget out there and meet people as

Jesus did,” he added. “He met their

physical needs. That’s an importantpart for us as people of faith to do:care for physical needs and spiritualneeds.”

Churches plant seeds of hope in community

Volunteers from St. Paul’s, Brighton, prepare the grounds at Emrich Center for spring gardens.

by Karen D. Bota

Harvest at St. Paul’s, Brighton.

The garden at St. Barnabas, Chelsea



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gust 2009

t. Peter’s, Detroit

St. Peter’s Manna Community arden got its start in 2007, later ine season than most gardens, whenneighbor came by and proposed

rting a garden at the church. “Sheed across the street so she took re of it mostly. Not a lot of otherople were involved,” said Em Ja-by, church member and gardener.

The next year the church joinede Garden Resource Network inetroit, which operates through thereening of Detroit. For just over0 a year, they received all the seedsd seedlings they needed and somethe lumber for the raised five beds

ey built. “If you want to start anganic garden in Detroit it’s very eap,” Jacoby said. The raised beds

e particularly necessary because theil is contaminated with lead andher chemicals. Still, it was mostly Peters people helping out, and not

any at that.

This year, however, Deacon Helenewster began organizing the neigh-rhood to get involved with therden. “She went door to door withers, we had a potluck meeting, ande or six people from the neighbor-od and 10 from St. Peter’s came,”

coby said. “We started the gardens year with that meeting, wheredeveloped a list of guidelines that

ost community gardens have.”

Additional beds were added thisar with soil from Georgia Streetommunity Garden, and compostom Greening of Detroit. Theree four flower beds, each four-by-o-feet, and 10 produce beds, eachur-by-eight-feet. The gardenersgether decided what to plant; andey chose lettuce, kale, cabbage, on-ns, tomatoes, bell and hot peppers,cumbers, and nasturtiums andarigolds to keep insect pests away.

“We have lots of loose leaf let-

ce—three pounds so far with moregrow,” said Jacoby. “There’s lotskale, bush beans are coming in,occoli, and some strawberries.”olunteers from the church and theighborhood weed and water.

The soup kitchen, Manna Com-unity Meals, will take the tomatoes,ions and potatoes. “We’ll pro-ss that for them, freeze it or canchop it, for use in soups,” said

coby. “Otherwise produce is usedstreet harvesters from the soupchen; people who work in therden can use it; and the potluck at

St. Peter’s every Sunday usually hasat least one dish from our garden.”

Anyone walking by who sees some-thing is ripe is invited to pick it andeat it.

“The idea of manna is food fromGod. If we don’t use it while it’s

there, it rots. You can’t store it up,” Jacoby said. “We’re helping the soupkitchen and growing this food, but

we have to make sure it is shared anddistributed in a timely way, becauseit’s there when it’s there and thengoes bad. When it comes to the gar-den, that’s important to think about.If we fenced off the garden and only let the volunteers come in, I think we

would waste a lot.”

ardens for their hungry neighbors in need Jacoby said she is just one of many

people who think, “‘We have all thisspace in Detroit and we have a lotof hungry people. Why not put thetwo together and do something forboth?’ It’s important to share with all

people, not just those who can affordto shop at the grocery store. Giving it to people who can walk to the gar-den from the street and put it in theirsoup is really important.”

St. James, Dexter

St. James, Dexter, started itsgarden last year when the directorof Faith in Action, the local inter-denominational agency that helpsneedy families, mentioned to churchmember Jackie Shock that its clientsappreciated fresh food, in addition tocanned and boxed items.

“For many years the need in thisend of the county was not talkedabout, but Faith in Action’s serviceshave increased 75 percent over lastsummer,” Shock said. “Now it’s anacknowledged need.”

Shock talked to the church’s out-reach committee to gain their sup-port for a garden. With the church’ssunny front yard, “smack dab infront of the parish hall,” Shock thought, a garden would do well, andit would likely be an effort the parish

would get behind. She was right.

“From the youngest to senior citi-zens, the garden, which is probably 20-by-35-feet, has engendered lots of support. This year we have 15 to 20adults who volunteer, and again asmany children,” Shock said.

At planting time, some plants were donated by members, others by local farmers and gardening shops.Members help weed and harvest atthe end of church on nice Sundays inthe summer, and take turns water-ing as well as dropping produce off

Gardeners from St. Peter’s Manna Community Garden in the Corktown neighborhood of Detroit.


Checking on things in the St. James, Dexter, garden.Kyle and Lindsey Doyle from St. James,

Dexter, with a week’s radish harvest.

Chris Hooker tends the garden at St. Peter’s, Detroit.



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August 200912a

Churches plant seeds of hope in communitygardens for their hungry neighbors in needat the food pantry. At the offering during the service, children bring upproduce they’ve helped plant and

pick. The St. James gardeners planted

what Faith in Action asked for:tomatoes, green peppers and hotpeppers are “biggies,” Shock said;as well as bush and pole beans, andthis year squash, melon and kale.Radishes “the size of small apples”

were ready to be picked in early July.“This year we’ve extended the gar-den so that it touches the back wallof the parish hall for vining plants.”

Volunteers also built a fence thisyear, with netting on the inside tokeep out digging animals, and they

applied for a grant from the ChelseaGarden Club to help pay for it.

“[The club] does grants forpeople doing community gardens,and they said they would not dochurches. But because we are giving all the food to the community foodbank, they accepted our applica-tion,” said Shock. “The fence hasbeen a stretch on the parish budget.[To help with the cost] our familiescan buy a section of fence, and puttheir name on that section.

“Most people walk right by and

don’t notice the garden, but weknow that the community we helpfeed is very appreciate and Faith in

Action is very appreciative.”

Church of the Incarna-

tion, Pittsfield Township

Garden coordinator Peggy Her-ron brought the idea for a gardenat Incarnation to the congregationafter she attended the first Faith andFood organizing meeting.

“The representation by Growing Hope and Food Gatherers really touched me,” Herron said. “I wasn’t

aware of the number of people in Washtenaw County who used foodpantries as a means of getting thefood they eat on a daily basis, andthe fact that Food Gatherers hasbeen such a wonderful community resource and they are in an eco-nomic pinch and their budget hasincreased so much. I felt this wassomething we could do to help andit wouldn’t be a stretch to make ithappen. A 20-by-20-foot plot—weknew we could do that.”

Volunteers laid out a 15-by-50-

foot section and within that con-

Continued from page 11a

structed eight five-by-12-foot raisedbeds. They planted items from theFood Gatherers list—foods that aremore “shelf-stable,” Herron said.

Weeding and harvesting takes placeon Sunday. As for watering? “We’restill working on a system,” Herronadmitted, adding that she is putting together a rotating schedule.

The garden at Church of the Incarnation, Pittsfield Township, in bloom.

So far they have harvested fivepounds of collard greens, which

were donated entirely to FoodGatherers. Broccoli and squash willbe ready next, then the Roma toma-toes. “But I think we will end up do-nating 70 percent, with 30 percentmade available to the congregation.”

Holy Faith, Saline, gardeners at their groundbreaking: (left to right) Merilynne Rush from

Faith and Food, Rick and Judy Wales, Leslie Sievert, Jane and Larry Darling, David

Gordon, and Jeff Cummings.

Last spring, David Gordon removed sod

from the space that would become thegarden at Holy Faith, Saline.

Larry Darling tills the soil at Holy Faith.

Holy Faith, Saline

For Holy Faith, Saline, the launchof Faith and Food came at just the

right time. “We had a visioning effort for the upcoming year, letpeople know about the program,and right away they were interestedin doing it,” said Rick Wales, amember who is active in the garden.

Outreach is important to the con-gregation, Wales said. “In this area,as in many areas in Michigan, [theeconomy] is tough and it’s hard forpeople to get what they need. Oneof the areas Food Gatherers identi-fied as the hardest thing to get isfresh vegetables. Like everyone, low income people want to eat healthier.

With Food Gatherers coordinating this list, we can help people get the

vegetables they need and want andcan use.”

Although the congregation has a“nice-sized piece of property,” they decided to start small and planneda 20-by-40-foot plot in the front of the church, where it was easier tobring water to the garden. MerilynneRush from Faith and Food educated

volunteers on the ins and outs of acommunity garden. They cut andstripped the sod, and brought incompost donated by the City of

Ann Arbor.

“We chose not to go with raisedbeds because we had a larger spaceto work in,” said Wales.

A planting day in mid-May gotall the seeds in the ground, and thegarden’s first batch of collard greens

was ready to be picked in early July. While four or five people are “heav-ily involved,” the rest of the congre-gation is invited to sign up to weedor water, a week at the time. “Wehave tools and the people just comeif it is their week.”

Children are involved, too. They planted pumpkins and flowers that

were donated to the garden in asmall space set aside just for them.

The congregation decided to give100 percent of the yield to FoodGatherers. “The requirement is 50percent, but this is a learning yearfor us,” Wales said. “If it goes well,

we’ll get bigger next year and maybelet people have their own plot there.For this year, everyone was really excited about the program and

wanted to donate all of it.”




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August 2009 13a

Volunteers, donations and faith make foodnext steps. Ask Rush what they’veproduced so far from St. Andrew’s

garden and she can tick off thenumbers without a pause. “We’veharvested 20 pounds of produce,including broccoli, cauliflower,peas, two pounds five ounces of redcabbage, and 10 pounds of collardgreens,” she said. Potatoes, toma-toes, peppers, and carrots are yet tocome.

Support for the garden has been“absolutely amazing,” said Rush.“Whenever someone tells me of a need, I put out an e-mail asking ‘Who can water?’ What days arepeople already at the church and

can help?’ One of our key gardenstewards, who has done community gardening before, comes by to weed

Continued from page 9a

Jim Briggs takes a turn at watering duty at the St. Andrew’s garden.

and check on things every Monday and Wednesday before choir prac-

tice, and on Friday someone elsecomes and waters. If someone can’tdo it, they find a sub.”

Rush herself got so caught up inher new passion that she applied for,and got, the new position of coordi-nator at Faith and Food. “I startedorganizing St. Andrew’s garden andtaking the course at Growing Hope,and at the same time Growing Hopeand Food Gatherers were applying for a grant for Faith and Food. I

was volunteering at all these places,so when they got the grant I was thelogical person.” Now Rush is work-

ing with other congregations doing the same thing she is doing in herown parish: helping them establishand maintain a community gardenfor the long haul.

The most important thing toconsider when starting a community garden is whether there is a ready base of volunteers in the congrega-tion. “So much gets donated by people who want to help, fromseeds, to tomato cages, to lumber,to scales,” Rush said. “But you haveto have the people willing to do thegardening.”

Thanks to a grant from the Ann Arbor Area Community Foun-dation, more than 12 congregations in Washtenaw County

have joined together to grow vegetables to donate to the area’shungry.

The congregations are participating in the Faith and Food initia-tive, a collaboration of the Interfaith Council for Peace & Justice,Food Gatherers, and Growing Hope. They are growing producespecifically requested by Food Gatherers, Michigan’s first food res-cue program that collects surplus food from more than 300 sourcesincluding restaurants, food retailers, food wholesalers and Univer-sity of Michigan dormitories.

The Faith and Food program is part of the Big Community Harvest effort to create sustainable ways to increase access to lo-cally grown, healthy food for neighbors in need. With assistancefrom Growing Hope, which helps people improve their lives andcommunities through gardening and healthy food access, congrega-

tions in Saline, Ypsilanti, Ann Arbor, South Lyon and Chelsea havestarted new gardens and are growing potatoes, peas, carrots, cau-liflower, cabbage, collards, broccoli, green beans, Roma tomatoes,cantaloupe, peppers and winter squash. Produce will be distributedthrough Food Gatherers to local food banks and meal programs.

Faith and Food helps congregations feedneighbors in need in Washtenaw County

For more information on Food and Faith, contactMerilynne Rush at [email protected].

Merilynne Rush weighing in first Food and Faith harvest.

Even members who are not part of the garden project are excited to hear about its progress, said Wales. Italso has been well received by the community. The church participated in community garden tours organizedby Faith and Food July 22 and August 1, “so the community is going to be more exposed and get to see someof these operations,” said Wales. “It’s getting a lot of attention, and people are relating to it like the Victory Gardens in World War II.”

Churches plant seeds of hopeContinued from page 12a

Church Gardening, The Record

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