The Herald, Sharon, Pa.

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August 21, 2009

UPDATE: Overgrown lot blooms as community garden

By Matt Snyder

FARRELL — It was a vacant lot, filled with stones and poison ivy and a broken fence before this summer. Now the space behind the senior housing complex Fornelli Manor is a well-manicured garden.

The transformation came at the expense of sweat and toil from a group of participants from AmeriCorps, West Central Job Partnership and CareerLink, and Keystone SMILES from Knox, Pa., some partly funded with federal economic stimulus dollars.

About 776 man-hours went into weeding out poison ivy, digging up stones, unearthing tree stumps, planting various flower beds, and constructing multiple hip-high and ground-level soil plots for the seniors of Fornelli Manor, said participant Stacy Pippin-Czap.

Now Barbara Turk can plant flower gardens again. “I just love this! They couldn’t have done anything nicer for us,” she said at their celebratory Garden Party on Wednesday.

Don Christie, who once gardened on his seven acres of Harrisville land, said it’s good to be back at it. “It’s something to do,” he said. He grows tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, cauliflower, and hot peppers in his plots.

Because some of the seniors can’t bend over, volunteers helped build some hip-high square plots, where flowers can bloom, tomato plants can fruit and other vegetables can grow within easy reach.

The shady backyard space seemed to give the greenery enough sunlight to thrive, and the seniors are looking forward to next year, when they will have an entire season to plant and cultivate.

The 12-week-long project used between 85 and 95 percent materials recycled from other places, including lumber, fencing, rocks and soil, said a release from Mercer County Housing Authority.

It wasn’t an easy job for the workers. First-time AmeriCorps participant Tyler Powell said the roughest part was digging out tree stumps by hand.

But he and Andy Puleo, another AmeriCorps worker, both said they learned a lot from the project: how to do landscaping, and also at other AmeriCorps sites, how to lay foundations, pour concrete, and build walls.

AmeriCorps worker Koann Eicher said it was rewarding to see the garden come out of the lot. “Every time we came, something was better and better,” she said. “This was a labor of love.”

There are still a few kinks being worked out. Christie said they’re working on a set-up to draw rainwater from the roof of Fornelli Manor into a barrel for watering the gardens, for instance.

For Keystone SMILES chief Libby Hansford, the project was all about putting together a space for the seniors to get together. “It’s kind of increased their sense of community.”

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