Community Gardens
“Gardens, scholars say, are the first sign of commitment to a community. When people plant corn they are saying, let’s stay here. And by their connection to the land, they are connected to one another” - Anne Raver. If you could see through my eyes you would realize how true this is. One of my many pleasures at the University is to prepare, organize, rent and then clean up our community gardens. With my regular tours of the farms I’m reminded of this. I received an e-mail from one of our tenants recently asking about year end activities like: ‘how long will this last with the fall frosts, will that still ripen, what should I preserve and how…’? And it is, believe it or not, a pleasure and a joy…here’s why.
These are our Community Gardens for graduate students and the few locals who keep the summer in Berrien. We prep a large section of land behind the University Apartments, we have run water to this chosen spot, and we divide it into 30x30 plots and then rent them out for a break-even price. Many of our apartments are full of small, young families who have traveled many miles into this strange country to gain an education. This, with hopes to better themselves and the people they touch when retreating back home. It’s a big scary move for them. Funds are extremely tight and the shock can be amazing. One man related a story of his kids, finely after being apart for 2 years, arriving only to fear the snow and not willing to go outside because they had never known it in Africa. The transition is immense. More then often it’s these same people we find out in our Community Gardens hard at work.
Yes, the original idea was to help put in the hands of the people the ability to grow their own food, giving them an opportunity for a financial break at home and a connection to nature. But, it’s become much more then that. All on it’s own it has taken the name of community to heart. They don’t just grow food. They grow their food. Food they attach to home. Food you may not find in the local Meijer. They band together at the beginning of the year clambering for plots next to friends anew and friends from summers past. Often these are persons from similar lands and they later chatter away in the filed (in native tongue), side-by-side rekindling a sense of home…a sense of place. This crosses over into the bordering gardens with the sharing of unique crops and different styles with others from different lands. They touch the earth, they laugh, sweat and conspire. But most of all they become a community. And it is only for them that we have in the truest sense a ‘Community Garden’. -Garth