Community Joins Hands To Breathe New Life Into School Garden

ORIENT, NY — The North Fork community is digging deep in their hearts to cultivate and restore the Oysterponds school garden.

A GoFund Me page, "Revive Oysterponds School Garden," was created to help raise funds for the project. To donate, click here.

"Spring has sprung, and we hope to get our Edible School Garden growing again," said organizer Kerry Loeffler. "We need to start from the ground up, as our prior garden fell into disrepair and weeds."

With the help of students, parents, teachers, administration, community members and farmer Tom Stevenson from Oysterponds Farm, the old garden has been demolished and there's an open space ready to begin again fresh, she said.

"We need your help to keep the momentum going," she said.

The vision involves expanding the present garden to 35 x 50' — laid with fabric cloth for weed suppression and then covered with pine bark mulch — and including eight raised beds constructed of cedar, Loeffler said.

The space will also allow for trellised and vertical planting areas, a compost bin, a bench for tools and gloves and a "ramada" or outdoor teaching and meeting space for children and teachers, she said.

Community members are welcome and encouraged to take part and be part of the school garden, she said, with an aim toward encouraging children to connect, incorporate and grow with their community.

"In order to get all of this up and going, we would appreciate whatever little or large you are able to provide — whether via donation or through local business," Loeffler said.

Listed, she said, "are the hopes, wishes and concrete materials we need to establish our vision, and to have our children get out into the garden to get their hands dirty, connect with our natural world, the sources of their food and their curriculum. A curriculum which feeds their bodies, minds and spirits."

The garden will require:

- cedar wood planks for raised beds. Currently, the group working on the garden has applied for a grant to help supplement the cost.

- New fence posts and siding

- Three yards of compost/soil

- Wood chips

- A drip irrigation system

- Bamboo stakes of all sizes form 1’ to 6’

- Twine and string

- A 50' or 75’ hose

- Kids' gardening gloves

- Seeds

- A rotating compost bin

- Hand tools, trowels, cultivators

- Paperboard for hanging tools

- A shed or covered wooden bench with combination lock to store tools and gloves

- Watering can

- Wooden planks for children to make and paint garden signs

- Outdoor paint

In addition to establishing the new Edible School Garden, "We look forward to the creation of an after school garden club, garden work days, a summer garden bed adoption for community and school members, and a garden newsletter. We are working hard on grant writing and garden fundraisers. Come join us in the garden and grow," Loeffler said.

For Loeffler, the garden is a labor of love. Both of her daughters attend Oysterponds school and she an experienced gardener that brings more than 20 years of experience to the project.

"We are hoping to get the garden growing again for the children and community," Loeffler said. "School gardens help youth work together, teach them where their food comes from, connect them with curriculum, and fosters within them a deep relationship to the earth. They are lessons that last a lifetime."

Patch photo courtesy GoFundMe.