August 19, 2022, by Janet Crozier, president and Certified SFG Instructor.
This has been a busy month with a lot of deadlines for grants and notifications for workdays and our annual gardeners’ meeting. In the midst of this, Nancy Love resigned as treasurer due to a family crisis. Fortunately, Geoffrey and Krista Spurgeon offered to be co-treasurers. Geoff comes in with a lot of business expertise and Krista is very detail oriented. The added bonus is that they are good gardeners. It was important to me to have someone/s that are acquainted with the needs of the garden and will be able to bring those needs to my attention. So welcome aboard Geoff and Krista.
We have been talking about a raised bed area to service the physically challenged for some time. Potential gardeners either in wheelchairs or those who have mobility problems that keep them from bending or kneeling have asked for this. Chris Eicher, the Parks Board director, offered some help in finding a way to make this happen. Having an ADA-compliant walk from the parking lot to the garden area will be provided by the Parks Dept. The plan is to remove the fence that butts up to the swimming pool and replace it with a gate that will allow gardeners to come in, leaving the current gate available to trucks and carts.
The flattish area next to the fence measures 14’ X 45’ long. It was decided that that is the best location for these raised beds. Mr. Dibble, a concrete contractor, gave us a quote that includes all the ADA requirements. He comes with a lot of experience and has done extensive work with the city.
LCRA (Lower Colorado River Authority) was offering grants for projects such as this. With the help of Geoff and Krista and suggestions from Sheila Slagel with LCRA, we were able to complete the grant and send it off before the end of the month. We were required to provide 20% of the grant amount and show evidence of that.
During the Spring Ho event, I just happened to run into Kelvin Barkowsky, the president of First Texas Bank. I had mentioned to him previously our desire to work on this ADA-compliant project after the pavilion was completed. He reiterated his desire to help with this and asked me to come to the bank and discuss how they could help. I met with him the next week and he offered $5,000 with the approval of the Bank’s BOD. He called and said the bank would give $2,500 immediately and another after the first of the year. He said that they would possibly provide $2,500 each year after that. Mr. Barkowsky contacted Mike Irvin and asked him to donate a small shed, which he agreed to do after the concrete is laid down.
I wrote another grant to the Square Foot Gardening Foundation for $2,000. That was mailed off this week.
We should be hearing from the Rosendin Foundation regarding a grant I wrote in February for the water collection tank that we have been talking about for some time.
We have had Krista Spurgeon and Janina Lecker, both gardeners provide wonderful classes with attendances of around 10 people respectively. Karen DeZarn will round out the month with a class on preservation of the harvest on August 30. I passed out flyers to a few businesses, the pregnancy center, and bought an ad in the Radiogram, but was not allowed to place a flyer at the library because we were charging. I heard the same excuse from the Radiogram.
We have had 2 workday sessions on Saturday mornings with only a few gardeners attending. I had hoped by having the workdays early (8:00 am), we would have a good turnout, but those that came accomplished a lot, but we still have more to do. With cooler weather coming, perhaps it will be easier to get willing workers.
