Citizens developing community garden

What started five months ago as a vision among a small group of like-minded citizens is rapidly becoming reality: a Sisters Community Garden just in time for the coming growing season.

How did this happen? Think peas, as in garden variety. Then think "P's", as in passion, persistence, persuasion and planning. But forget patience: there wasn't time for patience in the minds of Sue Stafford and Katie Cavanaugh, co-facilitators of the project that will be the first visible results of the Sisters Vision Action Team, a process started last October.

The "vision" is to establish a beautiful organic garden that fosters community connections among Sisters area residents. The garden will serve as a gathering place for a mosaic of people, a resource for education and an opportunity to realize the benefits and pleasures derived from gardening.

At the March 21 weekly meeting of the community garden committee - three nights before the first actual work party on a plot of land on East Adams Avenue - the weight of what had been accomplished began to sink in on Cavanaugh and Stafford.

"At that meeting I felt the intensity of the undertaking and the commitment and it was breathtaking," Cavanaugh said. "But it's not going to slow us down."

"The underlying goal for our team is supporting community connections, and the entire process so far has been exactly that," said Sue Stafford, a master gardener and the transitions coordinator for Hospice of Redmond-Sisters. "People have showed up at meetings of the committee, and, whether gardeners or not, they have shown that they are interested in this great process of connecting. New people have mixed with long-time residents and have jumped right in on the project, right into the stream of how things work in Sisters."

In addition to involving now nearly 30 members of the Community Garden committee, the project has meant connecting with established entities, including SOAR, Habitat for Humanity, Kiwanis, Oregon State Master Gardeners, Sisters Garden Club, Sisters School District and the City of Sisters.

The Board of Directors of SOAR has adopted the garden under umbrella sponsorship for 501(c)3 status and for liability insurance, and Sisters Habitat for Humanity has agreed to allow the garden to use two Habitat properties on a temporary "growing-season-to-growing-season" basis.

Grade school children are planting seeds as "starts" for the garden, and the Sisters Middle School "Roots and Shoots" group will be involved as volunteer helpers.

Discussions with community artists have led to commitments for both decorative and functional art pieces to be placed in the garden. Deals have been struck for free lumber and manure, compost and top soil.

"We are constantly blown away by commitment and enthusiasm and a willingness to just get the job done," Stafford said. "The success of the committee is due to a variety of very different but like-minded people working together for that common goal in a very healthy fashion. And they are bringing with them a huge range of talents and abilities."

"That's the beginning," Cavanaugh said. "Now, we are at the point where we are ready to get our hands in the dirt and make that vision come to life."

The community garden committee soon will begin taking applications for actual plots in the garden. A modest annual fee will be charged for each plot, depending on size, and the committee will sell memberships in the community garden organization with or without a plot in the actual garden.

The group also will encourage the donation of any gardening-related item and will accept cash donations, as well.

The planners want to have demonstration beds, mentor plots (where experienced gardeners work side-by-side with beginners), class projects, individual and group plots. Although the committee anticipates many plots being established before summer, a grand opening of the garden is set for Saturday, June 2.

Scheduled fund-raisers for the Community Garden include the proceeds from the April 12 movie "The Future of Food," the next "Talkies" event at Sisters Movie House and a May 11 "Seeds of Song" program featuring Katie and Doug Cavanaugh, Laura Kemp and Walker T. Ryan.

"This process has gotten new blood involved in the community and we have identified new leadership potential that, down the pike, will be nothing but good for this community as a whole," Stafford noted. "It's way more important than just a garden."

For more information contact Sue Stafford, 549-2107.