COLUMBIA — Community Garden Coalition (CGC) celebrated Earth Day and its 40th anniversary Saturday by offering a gardening workshop at Friendship Community Garden.
Founded in 1983, the all-volunteer nonprofit has grown to include 12 neighborhood gardens and 20 group gardens. What began as an endeavor to help four food-insecure individuals get adequate nutrition has become a community of more than a thousand people.
Bill McKelvey has been a volunteer and CGC treasurer since 2006.
“Thinking back over the 17 years [that I was involved], I think the group has done a good job of staying really focused on its mission,” McKelvey said.
The group provides support, supplies and garden plots to community gardeners, according to the coalition’s website.
“Being able to have that spot in the community garden meant that my kids could grow up in a garden before we even had property,” Lindsey Smith, a coalition board member and gardener, said.
Although she now tends a plot at Friendship Community Garden, which is located at 1707 Smiley Ln. in Columbia, Smith started at the Windsor Street Garden 12 years ago. She moved to the Friendship Community Garden after the Windsor Street location closed in 2013 for development.
Most community gardens make use of underutilized and unused spaces, according to the coalition board members.
One of those gardens, Unite 4 Health Community Garden, is located off the side of a parking lot at 1005 W. Worley St.
Gardening Leader Cheryl Jensen recalls when she started there in 2011, “at least half of the gardens [in this area] were completely overgrown with Bermuda grass and weeds.”
Jensen said she worked hard to make it available to community members.
“It’s a lovely little garden of Eden,” CGC president Kathy Doisy said. Dosiy noted it is the only CGC garden that is handicapped accessible.
Life-long gardener Kathy Heddinghaus, now retired, has spent about a year at Unite 4 Health Community Garden.
Heddinghaus said she’s grateful for the opportunity to continue gardening.
“At my age right now, I’m looking for something that will lighten the load a little bit,” Heddinghaus said.
The group works collaboratively to upkeep the gardens and bring people of all backgrounds together, according to Jensen.
“It’s a huge range [of people] from single moms on low incomes, raising children to older, retired people like me,” Jensen said.
She noted some young professionals are also part of the CGC community.
“I would love it if more groups had an interest,” McKelvey said. “If more organizations or other types of entities that own property also had an interest. … There’s just a lot of benefits that can come from having more gardens and more community around those gardens.”
CGC will have more events to celebrate its anniversary. For more information about future workshops and presentations, click here.
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