Group of Honors College Students at the St. John Cantius Parish Garden in East New York – Photo Credit: Honors College Director, Dr. DeLuca
SUNY Old Westbury’s Honors College students volunteered at St. John Cantius Parish Garden in East New York on March 23rd. The annual spring trip was coordinated by Honors College Director, Dr. Anthony DeLuca.
Under the division of NYC Green Thumb, the goal for the students volunteering is to help senior citizens maintain their neighborhood garden which may be in crisis of being taken away by the city, without proper maintenance.
Regarding the crisis surrounding the garden, Dr. De Luca stated, “The land the garden is on is very valuable land. Developers want to buy it from the city to build commercial buildings and housing. The communities the gardens serve really do need the knowledge and the means to eat healthy foods and have access to healthy foods. Senior citizens, who are often retired, have the time to work the gardens. However, gardening can be arduous work and they need help from young people to keep their gardens maintained according to city standards.” DeLuca mentioned that the neighborhood desperately needs fruits and vegetables and that there are very few stores in the area that can provide them.
The students were split into groups where some of them removed garbage and putting out to the front for sanitation to pick up. Others worked on building a pathway for people to walk on by removing piles of dirt and transporting them to wagons in order to prevent themselves from receiving a fine from Inspection. Some were putting together the honey frames for beehives and building garden frames to give more roots and soil and making it easier for senior citizens to plant.
Gemma Garcia, coordinator of the garden. was impressed and express her appreciation for students and other community members coming out and helping out at the garden. “I have been doing this for the last twenty one years and we always appreciate our gardeners, our helpers.” She believes that the garden will remain in the hands of senior citizens who work it as best as they can.
The students were pleased about coming out on a Saturday to volunteer at a garden, despite the cold weather that day. Nicholas Prahalis, a sophomore majoring in accounting explained the importance of volunteering at a garden. “I think it’s a great opportunity for people to get involved and other communities, to reach out to people in need. Help people eat healthier and make better decisions.” He gave his perspective in full detail on the ongoing issue on the crisis. “It’s a tough situation because although you have people to help, they can’t just simply do all the work. That’s why it’s important for us, even college students or people in the community or outside wanting to reach out, to keep these gardens for anyone who can’t afford food that needed.”
At the end, Dr. DeLuca was very impressed about the amount of progress being made by students under two hours. The main lesson he wanted students to learn and take away is the good feeling they receive when helping others and gaining knowledge of organic gardening, how easy and healthy it is along with beekeeping on how intelligent and civilized bees with all of the medicinal properties of honey and beeswax.
