September 15, 2017

Parish community garden provides spiritual experience, produce for food pantry

REGIONAL
Story and photos by David Martin

 

WESTFIELD – The St. Vincent De Paul Society at St. Mary Parish in Westfield is greatly benefitting from donations of fresh produce that is grown in the church’s community garden.

Jaquelyn Luna, a lifelong parishioner at St. Mary’s, has been growing lettuce, peppers, beans and zucchinis for zucchini bread in her space of the community garden behind the church’s rectory.  She said in discovering that some people are growing produce in their boxes specifically for the St. Vincent De Paul Society she realized it is an opportunity for parishioners to give in another way, if they are not able to volunteer their time to the society.

Luna, who is a master’s of public administration student at Westfield State College, said she learned a lot from the parish garden experience, including when to plant and when crops are ready for picking. She learned from observing other gardeners how to create the layout of the plants, because some grow larger than others and some need more sun, and also where to plant them, not too close to one another.  

Luna said it was a period of trial and error because she planted many seedlings and then some of them did not grow so she learned from that experience and was able to grow other produce successfully. She related her gardening at the church to a spiritual experience.  

“I had to take time out of my day to come, water it, weed it, so it was a way of giving of myself and to the garden. Also, the example of other people growing for St. Vincent (de Paul Society) and how they will be able to enjoy fresh produce was nice,” said Luna.

Luna, being one of the youngest members of the parish to have a garden plot, said it is special because showing her interest in the project may encourage younger parishioners to participate and learn from others who are older and experienced gardeners. She hopes it will help spread the word and maybe whole families at St. Mary’s will decide to grow a garden at the church together.

Jerry Rheaume, a board member of the St. Vincent De Paul Society, said last week the society received two large bags of ripe tomatoes from the community garden, which was a big help to the food pantry and adds to the stock that they are able to provide for people. He said just about every week there is some type of donation from the community garden, so they are grateful to the parishioners and it is wonderful to have fresh produce to offer because it is pretty expensive in grocery stores.

Rheaume said gardeners usually notify someone in the church rectory that they have left a package of produce for donation and it gets put in the food pantry basement where it is cool so it stays fresh for distribution. He said those in need who come to the food pantry can practically have unlimited amounts of produce because of the community garden and other donations from Big Y Supermarkets this time of year.

“The more produce we have, the more we can give out. We had lots of sunshine, lots of rain, so it was definitely a wonderful year,” said Rheaume.

Luna said she is already looking forward to having a plot in the parish’s community garden next year and hopes to maybe grow something different that she was not able to grow this year. She said it was nice for Father Frank Lawlor, pastor at St. Mary Parish, to open up the garden to the community for those like herself who do not have the space to create a garden where they live.

Father Lawlor said he is very pleased with how the St. Mary community garden turned out this year.

“It is great. It is something we tried, we did not know how it was going to go, and it turned out to be exciting. People were happy about it and I think it is the future of that garden,” said Father Lawlor.

For a video version of this story, tune into an upcoming edition of “Real to Reel” the Diocese of Springfield’s weekly television newsmagazine that airs Saturday evenings  at 7 on WWLP-22 NEWS.