Community Garden

THE EPISCOPAL CHURCH OF OUR SAVIOUR

Church of Our Saviour, Dallas, “Plots Against Hunger”

Our Saviour Community Garden is a ministry of The Episcopal Church of our Saviour, 1616 N. Jim Miller Rd, Dallas, TX 75217, first planted in 2003 with the help of Gardeners In Community Development, GICD, as a donation garden to give back to the community, to help with food security giving families a place to organically grow vegetables, to be good stewards of the earth, to pass along these gifts and to plant seeds of hope and faith.

The first year we were able to donate over 1,000 pounds of vegetables to the Southeast Dallas Emergency Food Center. In 2004 we donated over one ton. In 2005, through GICD, the garden was included in Heifer International’s Urban Agriculture Initiative. Heifer funding has helped with raised beds, tools, soil amendments, education, seeds, fruit and nut trees and livestock (worms and bees.) These gifts have greatly improved the garden, increasing the gifts we can pass on. The next year, 2006, we donated over two tons (5,500 lb., 22,000 individual servings) not counting what we used at our own tables or shared with friends! Since 2003 we have donated over 18,000 pounds or 9 tons, (72,000 servings) of vegetables to feed the hungry. Again, this does not count what we grow for our own use.

Our Saviour Garden has grown into a GICD teaching garden. School children, Science Clubs and Vacation Bible Schools extend their classrooms to the garden. Boy Scouts help harvest as a part of their service badge requirements. Classes are also held on canning, seed saving, composting, vermiculture, starting a community garden, etc.

GICD is teaching us to successfully use inexpensive methods for growing food and benefit the environment. We will never again look at unused spaces, bags of leaves and grass, chopped tree trimmings, old fencing or kitchen scraps the same way! This awareness won us the 2006 Hearts of Hope Award for Environmentalism from the Volunteer Center of North Texas and the Organic Garden Magazine and Aveeno’s WaterWorks rainwater cistern and watershed roofed pavilion.

Our community helps in the plot against hunger! The Balch Springs WalMarts awarded a matching grant for a plant sale. J.P. Morgan/Chase Bank donated picnic tables and monies for fencing and Master Halco help us with affordable pricing. The Sparks Foundation has gifted the garden with monies for fencing an additional garden area began this summer. Starbucks sponsors a plot, workdays and pickle sales. The list goes on… The garden grows community! The garden grows people!

Join us in the “plot against hunger.” Come to the garden for a visit, to help harvest, to fund a project or to grow with us. See you in the garden!

Rebecca (Becky) Smith, garden coordinator
Church Office: (214) 391-2824, website: oursaviourdallas.com
Becky’s cell (214) 564-5801.
Gardeners In Community Development, http://www.gardendallas.org
Heifer International’s Urban Ag Projects, Southwest:
http://www.heifer.org/site/c.edJRKQNiFiG/b.734899/