The St. Michael Giving Garden In February 2016 the Giving Garden seed was planted as Lisa Vilar and Christa Pusateri began bringing together ideas on how to most effectively grow food in support of feeding those in need in the Howard County area. In the fall of 2016, we celebrated the existence of the garden by supplying our parish Festival with fresh garden greens for the salad at the festival dinner!

Three years later having donated hundreds of pounds of fresh vegetables to the Howard County Food Bank, we continue to grow! Three Eagle Scouts have contributed to our garden structures: Ethan Welsh in 2016 built the 9 raised planter beds, in 2017 Payton Jaap built the fence and gates and in 2018-19 Noah Stewart built the garden shed out beyond the garden.

We are collecting gear to use in our garden, and could really use a functional garden cart or wheelbarrow. If you’re cleaning up your garage and find something you think we can use, please let us know.

Parishioners have caught the bug: Paul Thompson donates lumber for the projects, Emmett (Doc) Full donated topsoil, and Mikes Landscaping donates wood chips for outside the planters.

Many parish families and members have come to help out and more are welcome! We have a Sign-up genius to facilitate planning for watering, weeding and harvesting! Giving Garden Sign up!

Many thanks to the Vilar family for the inspiration and sweat effort to make this vision a tangible result of charitable hearts. If you have questions, want to help, or have extra harvest from your garden you’d like to add to our donation, please email Lisa Vilar at [email protected].

 

Chair: Lisa Vilar

Staff Lead: Ted Burkhardt