Located on Edwin C. Moses Boulevard, next to the RTA Cultural center, Sinclair has a campus community garden with adopted garden plots. The garden is coordinated by Adrienne Cassel, an english professor at Sinclair, who started the plot because of two students in an eco club: Nate Dumtschin and Jayne O’Zemko.
“Four or five years ago [2] students from Sinclair came to me and told me they wanted to start a garden and asked me if I would help them get started.” Said Cassel.
The group then went to speak with the head of facilities, Woody Widrow, who told them they could use the space on Edwin C. Moses. From there the project grew.
The garden started with four beds, and later the students received a grant to build an additional 10 or 11 beds.
“And then they graduated!” Cassel laughed. “They graduated, and what I did is I developed a module for my American literature II class and we read the Secret Garden.”
Cassel continued, “it [the Secret Garden] has a lot of nature, and growing things, so we read that and studied that, and their final project was they worked in pairs to design a garden bed, so each pair would take a bed and plant it.”
The garden is registered with Five Rivers Metroparks community gardens, which means the garden gets free seeds from the Metroparks every year.
Additionally, Cassel works with the people who work in the Aramark cafeteria on campus, to use their vegetable scraps to contribute to the compost bins at the garden.
Students, faculty and staff are all welcome to adopt a plot at the community garden, Cassel says departments are also welcome to come adopt a pot together.
The resulting harvest of the garden generally is donated to a local program that trains convicts how to cook and become chefs.
Cassel also mentioned that the garden would be a good place for professors to design service learning projects.
The garden mostly has herbs and some fruits and vegetables, and Cassel has also planted things like squash before. However, she says you can plant anything you want on your adopted plot.
“It’s fun to watch things grow,” Cassel said, “it’s good for the environment and the community to grow things together, it’s good community building.”
Interested students can contact Cassel, and adopt a plot to come take care of. If you choose to adopt a bed this summer, the Clarion will be there too.
There will also be a work day at the garden Thursday May 3, from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. The Clarion staff will be there for a few hours working on our newly adopted bed. Students, staff or faculty may stop by say hi, and maybe plant a couple seeds of community, or plants.
Cerridwyn Kuykendall
Managing Editor