EWING GREEN TEAM ORGANIZING EWING COMMUNITY GARDENERS OVERVIEW. Working Towards Building a Sustainable Ewing

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1 OVERVIEW ORGANIZING EWING COMMUNITY GARDENERS Members of the Ewing Green Team began a process of organizing residents who gardened at the Whitehead Road Gardens beginning in the late summer of This was felt necessary because: 1. The gardens were not well kept up. They were weedy and overgrown. 2. There were no rules regulating the behaviors of the gardeners to insure that the plots were maintained. 3. There was no site wide fencing so the gardens were subject to animal incursions that eventually drove some to abandon their plots. (See photos below. For additional photos see photos at the bottom of the page). Therefore a group was formed with these intentions: 1. To work together to improve conditions for gardening at the gardens. 2. To create an organization of gardeners that would provide mentors and education for new and longtime gardeners alike. 3. To create a gardening community where Ewing residents to work together to cultivate a place to learn about and experience the rewards of gardening. 4. To help gardeners become self-sufficient and aid in promoting local food security. 5. To provide means for residents to eat healthier, enhance the quality of life and strengthen community bonds.

2 FIRST MEETING The first meeting of the Ewing Community Gardens was held on October 17, 2012 from 7 9 p.m. at the Ewing Senior and Community Center. The Green Team Community Gardens Committee had collected a list of individuals interested in expanded community gardening opportunities from a number of sources: 1. Prior community gardeners from the Township Clerk, Kim Macellaro who was responsible for managing the sign-ups each year. 2. Individuals who signed up to learn more about gardening opportunities at the National Night Out Event on August 7, Individuals who signed up to learn more about gardening opportunities at Ewing s Annual Community Festival (CommFest) Event on October 6, An old list of people who were looking for additional gardening opportunities on the west side of town compiled by Kim Macellaro and given to Charles McDonough of the Ewing Green Team. We combined all lists into one list of 96 individuals. Where information was incomplete, we used the official website of the New Jersey Association of County Tax Boards at to search for incomplete names and mailing addresses. That process was completed on 10/11/2012. Duplicates from all 5 of the lists were removed and data compiled into one line for each individual. We then attempted to contact each potential gardener on the list by direct mail, telephone or by depending upon the information that we had available to invite them to the organizational meeting. A screenshot of the mailed post card is at the right: Front:

3 Back: RESULTS Twelve people attended the first meeting. The Ewing Community Gardens has continued to meet monthly and new gardeners have been showing up at each meeting. Minutes from each meeting are located at the Ewing Community Gardens website at WEBSITE We also felt that it was critical that the gardeners have one place where they could go to find timely and complete information about the Ewing Community Gardens online. A new website was created in October 2012 with a blog entry home page for current updates and static interior pages for meeting minutes, photos, a calendar of events, links to additional information from outside groups and more The URL is SITE CLEAN UP A site clean-up at the Whitehead Road Gardens was held on a cold and windy March 23, However, despite the weather, the Ewing Green Team, alongside Ewing Township employees, veteran and new gardeners, and a team of enthusiastic volunteer students led by Bonner Scholar, Chelsea Sandmeyer, persevered in preparing the Ewing Community Gardens at Whitehead Road Extension for the spring gardening season. STATISTICS As of our last count, we had 15 TCNJ students, 8 current or former Green Team members and 16 new and veteran gardeners (see list below in Appendix 1) at the site during the day. SITE PROGRESS

4 We were amazed at the amount of work accomplished at the gardens by Township staff prior to the Site Clean Up. By the end of the day, Ron and Kevin from Public Works also had the new area pretty well prepared for the site plowing. A number of Township officials also visited the site during the workday. DAY END By days end, nearly all of the debris/garbage from the prior season had been removed. The remaining vegetative debris will be plowed under when site plowing is done. We also started using the wood chips to lay the main site paths. We laid the main path parallel to the street where the two water sources are located. We also began the central site path to the main path. PHOTOS FROM THE DAY: FIGURE 1 - MARY JANE LEACH INSTRUCTING TCNJ STUDENT VOLUNTEERS

5 FIGURE 2 EWING TOWNSHIP PUBLIC WORKS STAFF FIGURE 3 EWING GARDENERS AND VOLUNTEERS AT WORK LAYING OUT THE PATHS

6 For More Photos see our Photos page the 2nd entry - Spring Garden Clean Up on March 23rd. APPENDIX 1 ATTENDEES March 23rd Ewing Community Gardens Site Clean Up Sign In Sheet Name Phone Number Address Affiliation Joanne Mullowney jwmullowney@gmail.com Green Team Bill Mullowney jwmullowney@gmail.com gardener Mary Jane Leach mjleach2@gmail.com Green Team Peter Boughton tejbo742@aol.com Green Team Lisa Feldman pcolavita@mercercounty.org Green Team Mark Wetherbee (609) mwetherb@verizon.net Green Team Joe Mirabella (609) josephmirabella@yahoo.com Green Team Joe Murphy joemurphydem@verizon.net Green Team Jennifer Keyes-Maloney key_jl@yahoo.com Green Team Jim Lodge jlodge88@comcast.net Gardener Wendy Lodge jlodge88@comcast.net Gardener April Sabo cruser0420@aol.com Gardener Terry Delahanty tdela40@gmail.com Gardener Wilson Goodwyn goodwyn@gmail.com Gardener Barbara Brezak r2mbee@msn.com Gardener Bob Brezak r2mbee@msn.com Gardener Beverly Papp ghialady@comcast.net Gardener Stacy Svendor Papp stacydlacy@comcast.net Gardener Charles Green greenclg@hotmail.com Gardener David Ensminger Gardener Warren Wormley jazmstr@comcast.net Gardener the unknown gardener Sonia Wormley jazmstr@comcast.net Gardener Chelsea Sandmeyer sandmec1@tcnj.edu TCNJ Nicolas Freschi freschn1@tcnj.edu TCNJ Cody Combs combssc1@tcnj.edu TCNJ Laron Day day12@tcnj.edu TCNJ Jonathan Flores floresj26@tcnj.edu TCNJ

7 Justine Rodriguez TCNJ Alyssa Martinez TCNJ Alana Huszar TCNJ Mary Jo Mikhail TCNJ Zachary Nelson TCNJ Michael Donnelly TCNJ Tabiya Ahmed TCNJ Francesca Buarne TCNJ Alesso Ahefi TCNJ Nicholas Dimauro TCNJ Julia Woolever TCNJ Tarika Mahal TCNJ Business Admin Jim McManimon ext 7605 Twp. Mayor Bert Steinmann ext 7606 Twp. Ron from Twp. Public Works Kevin from Twp. Public Works Twp. Twp.