UNC community garden bene?ts housekeeping staff

Rain and heavy thunder couldn’t stop LaDarian Smith from gardening Wednesday.

Smith and 11 other volunteers ignored the bad weather and spent the afternoon gardening at the Carolina Campus Community Garden, which provides free fruits and vegetables to University housekeepers.

“I’m a little wet right now, but I really wanted to come out here and see what the garden was about,” said Smith, a senior English major and a first-time volunteer.

Every week, the program distributes produce to one of three alternating housekeeping shifts and serves about 100 housekeepers. The garden, which is located at 200 Wilson St., has given away about 14,000 pounds of food since its inception in 2009.

Claire Lorch, the garden’s education coordinator, said a group of University employees started planning for the program because of concerns for the housekeeping staff during the recession.

“The economy was tumbling, and there was talk about starting a food bank,” said Lorch. “I ended up quitting my job several months later and began working on the garden full time.”

The garden officially opened in 2010 and is tended twice a week by student and community volunteers.

“We always encourage students to volunteer. You don’t have to have any prior gardening experience. It’s a great way to learn,” Lorch said.

UNC housekeeper Olga Baza has received produce from the garden for more than two years. She said the housekeepers consider the program a blessing.

“It helps us so much at home,” Baza said. “A lot of us have big families and our salary is very low. We’re all so thankful.”

The program also provides cooking classes for the housekeepers, and brings in local celebrity chefs to show healthy ways to cook the produce.

Baza said she has attended several of the classes and loves them.

“They’re great,” she said. “They showed us how to cook this lettuce I hadn’t heard of, and now I cook it all the time.”

The program leases the land from the University,which funds the garden along with the Fox Family Foundation. The University funds come from the Office of the Chancellor.

Lorch said the program has been extremely successful, and they are planning to expand the garden by 35 percent.

“We’ll be moving from 9,000 square feet to 14,000,” she said. “We’ll be making room for several more beds and fruit trees and bushes. And we’re hoping to put in a solar-powered greenhouse.”

Lorch said a large portion of UNC housekeeping employees are from Burma, and the program has planted a number of vegetables native to Asia in response.

John Powers, a junior chemistry and biology major, has volunteered with the program for two years and said he loves working in the garden.

“It was on the Week of Welcome calendar when I was a freshman,” Powers said. “I showed up and I’ve been hooked ever since.”

Powers volunteers every Wednesday and Sunday and said the work is rewarding and fun.

“It’s a good way to de-stress from classes and play in the mud,” he said.

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