CITY OF LOCKPORT: Compeer trying to sprout community garden effort

Staff Reports
Lockport Union-Sun & Journal

June 23, 2009 12:13 am

— A group of youths are targeting an open plot downtown for beautification and they’re asking the community’s help with the endeavor.
Members of Compeer, a Be-A-Friend program for youths organized by the Mental Health Association in Niagara County, will start cleaning up a small plot of land at Walnut and Saxton streets, across the street from St. Mary’s Church, on Wednesday.
They’re planning on planting perennials and, over the longer term, improving the plot as an environmentally conscious community service project.
Anyone who wants to lend a hand with cleanup or landscaping, or donate plants and/or garden supplies, is welcome to come out to the plot anytime between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. Wednesday.
According to Pamela Szalay, community educator for Mental Health Association, the youths’ goal is to create a “sustainable” garden by recruiting community members to the cause. They proposed the project after attending the recent Environmental Youth Summit arranged by Sustainable Earth Solutions.
The plot is privately held by YWCA of Niagara. Once landscaping is completed, Szalay said, the youths plan to maintain plantings and, over the longer term, arrange improving features such as addition of a park bench.
Their plan is as much about inspiring ongoing community involvement as dressing up a piece of land, according to Szalay.
The garden “is supposed to be sustainable, that is, live beyond (the youths’) high school years,” she said.
Anyone who’s coming out to the plot Wednesday to assist with cleanup should bring gloves, gardening tools and their own lunch.
For more information, call the Mental Health Association, 433-3780.