Why the Camden Children’s Garden Has A Piece of My Heart

Most of my readers know that I worked at the Camden Childrens Garden (CCG), the stewards of the Camden City Garden Club (CCGC) for a decade and have supported for longer.

In my twenties, I was contemplating joining the Peace Corps before I met my then-future-husband and decided to do some good locally. My path led to helping children in Camden, NJ to learn about the importance of plants and community.

This special and sad city will always have a place in my heart. It’s the 1000s of stories of families overcoming odds through community groups like this one. Where people are given a hand up, rather than a handout — learning how to grow their own food…. and so much more thru gardening!

The Garden’s Mission inspires and educates people of all ages by providing opportunities to improve their quality of life, health and community through horticulture. That’s a win-win for plants and people!

The organization is so inspiring, the CCGC was featured in countess new stories and we were even in Michelle Obama’s book when she was First Lady!

WHY CAMDEN?

The City of Camden has faced many challenges for decades, chief among them:

• Low-income and high unemployment

• Camden is a food desert, lacking access to fresh fruits and vegetables

• High food insecurity among city residents

• High adult and childhood obesity, diabetes, hypertension, cardiovascular disease.

It was obvious that Camden needed my help — they need ALL our help ya’ll!

“My Garden Family” leaders are Val Frick and Mike Devlin, longtime Camden residents. This couple is aware of those challenges and made the commitment to address them on the grassroots level. They founded the Camden City Garden Club in 1985, an urban community gardening initiative focused on teaching Camden residents skills to grow their own fresh fruits and vegetables. The group does this through the repurposing of vacant city lots, which were in abundance, and a blight on the city landscape.

The CCGC grew and flourished and additional related programs were added!

1989–GrowLab/School Garden/Science Education Program– is a “hands-on” environmental science course for students in grades 1-8, framed around making science appealing and relevant to students’ lives, interconnected with other subjects, e.g., nutrition, math, language arts, social studies.

1994–Youth Employment and Training Program offers at-risk Camden youth environmental science education through urban agriculture and community gardening while simultaneously providing them “real world” job experience and marketable occupational skills, plus year-round paid employment. Youth participate while attending high school, graduate, and pursue higher education and/or employment, affording them an achievable path to self-sufficiency.

1999–Camden Children’s Garden, situated on Camden’s Delaware River Waterfront, a 4 ½ acre horticultural playground designed for families and children to discover the natural world in an urban setting. Attractions include water-themed exhibits, interactive gardens, experiential education lessons with indoor/ outdoor opportunities for exploration and imaginative play.

Since CCGC launched nearly 35 years ago:

•Their community gardens and urban farms have grown 18% of Camden’s fresh produce annually

•56000+ elementary students have participated in the GrowLab Program

•346 youth have completed the Youth Program, with a 99% high school graduation rate

•Over 800,000 area residents have visited the Camden Children’s Garden.

These accomplishments are proof of the energy, resilience and determination of the Camden community, supported by these fundamental CCGC programs for the last 34 years. Sustaining them requires money, money to maintain the Camden Children’s Garden, buy the seeds and soil, wood for raised beds, curriculum materials, and pay the youth, and bring GrowLab to more Camden schools.

You can play an instrumental role in helping these programs run for another 35 years with your direct contributions and by sharing this information with your friends, family, neighbors and colleagues through social media, email, and even old-fashioned letters! You can plant seeds of hope!