Welcome to the new blog about the Williams Street Community Garden! So glad you stopped by! This first blog is all about our little start up garden's wonderful behind the scene story.
Early last year WMHS CEO, Barry Ronan had a conversation with one of our nurses who was retiring in a few months. Turns out that Connie Otto is passionate about gardening and all that goes with it!! She was working with a number of groups to start a Community Garden. With all that WMHS is doing to improve the health of our Community this resonated with Barry. So not long after, I found myself saying yes to investigating how WMHS could be a catalyst for a Community Garden. In addition, our Board of Directors embraced this too by including the successful start-up of a Community a Garden as one of their goals. Trust me when I tell you that is a BIG DEAL! Making sure that people can obtain fresh fruits and vegetables will, over time improve their health. And if you are healthy you have the foundation for success in school, work, life and Community!! And really we are the HEALTH System so it is a perfect fit for us.
So I went about forming an internal team to get this goal on the road. Now let me digress here for a moment to let you know that when it comes to gardening....I'm more or less a virgin!! I grew up in Baltimore City and well that's my story! The plants that grow in our house have to thank my husband David for their continued life, I'm sorry to say. So I knew I was going to need some serious help!! And when it comes to food where else to turn but to our Dietary Department!! Now I knew somewhere in the back of my mind that our own Tara Hartsock who is our Patient Care Manager in Food and Nutrition has a farm. And when I approached Department Director John Wilson, he said he thought Tara would love to help and he was right. She was delighted to be asked!!
In August off Tara went to attend the American Garden Community Association Conference and came back bristling with great ideas. Our first step, she told me was to figure out a location. So Tara and I spent a number of hours driving around South Cumberland trying to find a suitable location for the garden. We wanted to start in South Cumberland in a location not too far from the hospital. Now some places we saw looked good but were too small so we would've had to do more then one location to really make an impact. And some places were too big, at least from my perspective. Were we every going to find a spot that was just right? (Is this starting to sound like Goldilocks and the 3 Bears?). I was telling this to Barry after weeks of searching and he came up with the perfect solution. Why not use our own property on Williams Street right across from the former Imaging Center? Can we all say DUH!!! It is just PERFECT!!
Okay so we now had our location. Next Tara and I went about recruiting the rest of our Team. We needed both internal partners and really wanted Community partners as well. Because while this was our first garden, I could already tell we were going to want to expand as time went on. So the next team member we wanted was Terry Beck, Manager of Facilities. We spoke to his Department Director, Peter Barnett and got the thumbs up! Terry, too, is no novice to gardening. He and the grounds crew provided the backbone for our Community Garden. They took on the yeomen service and made sure that all the different items we acquired to make our garden a go was done perfectly. We also added Nancy Forlifer, who as Director of Community Health and Wellness knew all the ins and out of connecting us with the people we most wanted to reach. We also asked Connie Otto to join and she agreed. And we asked Kathy Rogers, Director of Community Relations to give us a hand in getting the word out. So our internal team was assembled.
Now it was time to reach out to Community partners. One of the first people I spoke to was Sherry Frick at the University of Maryland Extension. OMG is she knowledgeable!! We were lucky enough to have her agree to join our internal team and has guided us with layouts and timing and all sorts of things along those lines. In addition she provided us with thornless blackberry, raspberry and strawberry plants for the garden. Even better she also has provided us with Master Gardeners who agreed to conduct Grow to Eat lectures at the hospital, one in April, May and June. Plus the master gardeners will be available available at our grand opening and other times throughout the growing season. The next person I reached out to was Chad Stinnett, General Manager of our local Lowes. My boss, Nancy Adams, our COO/CNE has a good relationship with Chad. So after contact was made..out I went to speak with Chad. And Chad has been terrific. They supplied us with fencing, wood for the 25-5X10 garden plots, ground cover for the entire area we were going to garden and once we hit up against the top of their permitted donation we were allowed to purchase whatever else we needed at the stores cost!! This included all the tools we needed, fertilizer, compost, tomato stakes, and flowers to both beautify and deter any little animals along with apple trees and 2 pair trees and let me tell you...one needs to be very careful to get different types so we can get pollination!! Or else no fruit!! Man, the things I am learning!! Next was a visit to Eby's who very generously donated growing medium and mulch and there was tons of each needed! And Dick Graham at WCI was wonderful too offering not only seedlings for veggies for all the plots but also dropped off a number of flowers for the United Way Day of Caring and Sharing. The next partner I went to see was Jeff Rhodes, the City Administrator, because even I knew that without water this garden was going nowhere. Fortunately the City was kind enough to supply us with 3 irrigation taps and best of all free water for the growing season. Everyone of our Community Partners realized that a Garden such as we were dreaming of could only bring good to the people who live here. We are truly blessed!
Well this is enough for now. Next Blog will be all about our Day of Caring and Sharing.
Jo Wilson
Western Maryland Health System
Vice President, Operations
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