By John Hamilton
Community gardens have become very popular in recent years because they provide many benefits.  They provide fresh fruits, vegetables and flowers to the participants.  They also bring community members together to prepare the raised beds which make good use of otherwise fallow land.  People join together to build the frames, fill them with soil and then begin to garden.  All of this helps build community and, the gardens are beautiful.
 
Working with nearby residents, the Rotary Club, lead by Rotarian Glen Rowe, has constructed four individual raised beds next to Freedman Memorial Plaza on Martin Luther King, Jr. Boulevard.  Each bed is four feet wide by ten feet long, one foot deep and holds about 1.5 cubic yards of soil.  Already the okra is waist high in the first beds.  The melon and cucumber plants threaten to take over the neighborhood if not watched. 
 
The community asked the club to build six more beds so this week a group of Rotarians and neighborhood residents met to prepare them.    They expect plants in the new beds to begin producing in the late summer and fall season.  The City of Waxahachie has provided the land -- one acre next to Freedman Memorial Plaza, the water, and mowing of the grass.  The Rotary club provides the material & some of the labor to build the raised beds.  Community members do the gardening.
 
The people in the picture are:  Front Row, left to right -- Joyce Chiles, one of the gardeners;  Andi Wallace, Billie Wallace's daughter;  Billie Wallace, Rotarian;  Mike Fenton, Rotarian;  Reverend Stanley Becks, the person responsible for getting the gardeners to plant the beds and administering the grounds;   Back Row, left to right -- James Page, community leader, maintains the removable water faucets, and is the contact with the community;  Dave McSpadden, Rotarian;  Mary Lee Taylor, another gardener;  Glen Rowe, Rotarian;  Walter Wicker, Rotarian;  Dick Mockler, Rotarian;  and not pictured, Kerric Bradford, Rotarian. Yes, that is the okra in the foreground.  This project has brought together residents, the City of Waxahachie and Rotarians to provide a beautiful, productive green space for the area.
 
For more information about the Rotary Club of Waxahachie where we believe in Service Above Self and doing things as a club we cannot do alone, visit the club web site at www.waxahachierotary.org .  You can find American flag subscription forms on the web site.
 
 
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