New Beginnings
By Matthew Dolan, AmeriCorps, Opportunity Gardens Associate
My first time at Joyce's house I noticed dozens of small potted flowers along the stairway leading up to her deck. “The kids in the neighborhood gave me those for Mother’s Day”, she tells us. And truly, she a neighborhood mom to many on her street. “They come by my house right before school and first thing after school”. After noticing children in the neighborhood crossing the highway to get food at the gas station, Joyce began stocking up on snacks and opened up her home to provide a safer place for children to get something to eat. For years she had been raising a few vegetables for friends and family so when she heard about the Opportunity Gardens program she quickly signed up. With the extra garden space she plans to raise more vegetables for kids and their families in her community.
Their street is one of the most under served and disenfranchised neighborhoods in the area. Being just outside the city limits, properties are not subject to the same standards and regulations as those inside Columbia. Many of the buildings are badly maintained and water quality is poor. People usually want to move away sooner than later. But Joyce has chosen to fully invest herself in the neighborhood and is working to create a caring culture of people helping one another.
On Joyce’s garden install day, with the help of her son Sterling and friends and neighbors, we built three raised beds together and planted summer vegetables. With I-70 roaring 50 feet away, we all had to use our outside voices as we leveled out the ground, screwed boards together, and filled the completed raised beds with compost. It is a hot and humid day, but Joyce’s optimism is contagious. “The highway is my ocean”, she says, as she brings out another tray of food for the hard workers. As Trish and Joyce water the garden together and the rest of us load the tools back into the truck, I know we are all looking forward to learning from each other over the next three years in the Opportunity Gardens program.
