A Growing Ministry

On a sunny slope behind St. Luke Lutheran Church in Gales Ferry lies a mission. In 2012 The St. Luke Community Garden was built to provide fresh vegetables to the soup kitchens in Norwich and New London and to the needy in the local community. Members and friends of St. Luke, soup kitchen clients, and the staff and workers from the Eastern Connecticut Community Garden Association [ECCGA] worked together to accomplish the laborious challenge of establishing a new garden. But the work did not end there.

Each year the garden relies on volunteers to prepare the soil for the coming season, plant,weed, harvest and winterize the land. Church member and Master gardener Rudy Croteau organizes and oversees the volunteer effort. He and other accomplished gardeners share their expertise as they work alongside budding green thumbs. YN 2 Tyson Bailey and YN 2 Jonathan Felix from SSO GROTON joined the spring work party this year in tilling and weeding the garden for planting. On May 18 these sailors and six St. Luke members spent the morning in the sun and dirt, kicking off another year of gardening and giving.

The garden mission has bloomed into a learning opportunity, teaching participants young and old, member and non-member, how to tend a garden as well as how to tend to their neighbors. Fresh vegetables are a luxury to many in Connecticut. Thanks to the garden, several hundred pounds of nutritious vegetables have reached those who cannot afford them otherwise. In 2014 nearly 1000 pounds of organic swiss chard, squash, cucumbers, tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, basil, sage, and green beans were gathered throughout the season. St. Luke proudly stands by the ELCA motto “God’s Work, Our Hands,” and places a portion of the harvest in front of the altar as a reminder of how the Community Garden is an opportunity to follow this mindset.

St. Luke welcomes members of the community to join in this rewarding ministry. The next scheduled group event is planting, which will take place on Saturday May 30. For information on how to participate, or to seek the help of the Community Garden, contact the church at (860) 464-7897 or Rudy Croteau directly at rudy.croteau@sbcglobal.net. St. Luke is a member of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and is located at 1830 Rt 12 in Gales Ferry, CT.