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Plentiful Harvest

Everyone's Garden fulfills needs for every kind of volunteer.

Barbara Lewis I Contributing Writer

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1

a food pantry that operates out of St. John's
Episcopal Church in Royal Oak.
In addition to a cadre of 12 to 20 com-
munity members (including several mas-
ter gardeners), garden volunteers come
from Kadima, a Jewish organization that
helps people with mental illness; JARC,
a Jewish-sponsored organization for
people with developmental disabilities;
Teens All Together (TAT), a group for
teens with special needs that meets at the
Jewish Community Center; and Rainbow
Rehabilitation Center in Farmington Hills,
which helps people with traumatic brain
injury.
The garden also hosts special education
students from Berkley, Ferndale and other
neighboring school districts. Some of the
beds are raised several feet off the ground
to accommodate gardeners in wheelchairs.
Working in the garden has definite thera-
peutic value, said volunteer Barry Waldman
of Huntington Woods, a retired attorney.
"We had one teenage girl with autism
who spoke her first word ever last year
while working here Waldman said.
Everyone's Garden uses land owned by
Our Lady of LaSalette parish on Harvard
Street, west of Coolidge and north of 11

career counselor with the Ferndale schools,
have been volunteering at the garden since
it started four years ago.
Waldman is also on the board of the
Neighborhood Garden Coalition (www.
thengc.org), the nonprofit organization
that operates the garden. The coalition
maintains several other gardens in the area.
For several years, they helped residents
run a garden at the Meer Apartments on
the Jewish Community Campus in West
Bloomfield.

Gardening Firsthand

Neighborhood Garden Coalition founder Jim Greenwood of Huntington Woods works
with Rainbow Rehabilitation Center volunteers.

Mile Road. The main plot is adjacent to a
former Franciscan friary that is now home
to the Song and Spirit Institute for Peace;
the newer plot is across the street, behind
the church parking lot.

Israeli, American Birthright
alumni volunteer at garden.

n Aug.14, 24 visiting Israeli
young adults and a hand-
ful of Detroit-area Birthright
alumni volunteered for two hours in
Everyone's Garden in Berkley. They
picked tomatoes, beets and kale and
planted microgreens to be donated to
local food pantries.
Mike Sikmahnov, farm manager at

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September 3 • 2015

Everyone's Garden, had gone to Israel
on a Birthright trip coordinated by
the Jewish Federation of Metropolitan
Detroit in December. The Birthright
program sends Jewish young adults,
18 to 26, on free trips to Israel so they
can learn about the Jewish homeland.
Federation coordinated three trips
last year, in December, May and

All crops are organic; soapy water is the
only pesticide used, Waldman said. The
garden also minimizes water use with a
drip irrigation system.
Waldman and his wife, Ann, a retired

June, each with 40 Detroiters. Each
group was accompanied by eight
Israelis. In addition to traveling with
the Americans, the Israelis provided
home hospitality. The Israelis visited
Detroit for six days, staying with their
American friends.
The Israelis, aged 20-26, had all
completed their army service, said
Eti Oren, one of the group lead-
ers. They all come from the Central
Galilee area, which is the Federation's
Partnership2Gether region.
The Detroit visit helped cement
strong connections between the Israeli

Everyone's Garden is the only community
garden in the state with programs for chil-
dren with special needs, said Neighborhood
Garden Coalition founder Jim Greenwood
of Huntington Woods.
"The kids see a vegetable in the ground
or on a plant, then they taste it. They get to
learn where food comes from," Greenwood
said.
"Gardening lets them share their energies
and keeps them focused," Waldman added.
Risa Davis of Southfield, who lives with
three other adults in a Kadima-run home,
has been volunteering once a week since

Harvest on page 10

and American Birthright participants,
Oren said. "These will be lifelong con-
nections."

❑

Part-time farm manager Mike

Sikmahnov (red shirt) shows Israelis

he met on Birthright how to harvest

kale.

Israelis and Detroiters who
met on Birthright trips enjoyed work-

ing at Everyone's Garden together.
Detroiter Marni Lieberman

offers fresh beets to Israelis Inbar
Ribenzon and Amit Perchuk.

