Really Raised Garden Beds – Allowing Everyone to Get Involved

My name is John Bolan and I am an AmeriCorps member serving with the Power of We Consortium at the NorthWest Initiative’s Food System Project in Lansing. On April the 16, at the Allen Neighborhood Center’s (ANC) Hunter Park Garden House, myself and fellow AmeriCorps members Bekah Galang and Kathleen Egan, and community advocate/ANC Intern Jared Talaga mobilized 44 volunteers from the community, Power of We AmeriCorps State and VISTA programs, and more than 20 youth volunteers to build Really Raised gardens beds.

The beds were built at the Hunter Park Garden House, and designed by ANC intern Jared Talaga to better accommodate members in the community who might not be able to do the bending and kneeling gardening often requires. Brick pavers were laid to ensure easier wheel chair mobility and access.

The project was part of 2011 Global Youth Service Day. Global Youth Service Day (GYSD) is an annual campaign that celebrates and mobilizes the millions of children and youth who improve their communities each day through service and service-learning. Established in 1988, GYSD is the largest service event in the world and is now celebrated in more than 100 countries. On GYSD, children and youth address the world’s most critical issues in partnership with families, schools, community and faith-based organizations, businesses, and governments.

Our project was lucky enough to receive both a Global Youth Service Day mini-grant as well as a Diversity and Inclusion mini-grant from the Michigan Community Service Commission (MCSC) and The LEAGUE Michigan; we were also able to secure donations from the west Lansing Home Depot.

Planning this event involved long days and even longer nights but thanks to the hard work and dedication of everyone involved the project turned out to be a huge success. It will be used as a model for other gardens across the city and state to make sure all of our citizens have access to the gardening experience that we might sometimes take for granted. This project really opened up my mind to disability and inclusion issues that I have not thought about before, but will forever be aware of now. There were many amazing aspects to this project, but by far the best was seeing a community coming together to make a positive change for people they might never meet.