Do you like to garden and get excited when plants start to bloom? You might just want to join the SGA Subcommittee Respect the Nest’s community garden initiative! Since last semester, Respect the Nest has made headway with their community garden project, partnering with Physical Plant to create an outside community garden space. The gardening area, which will be located behind the South parking lot, will contain cement cylinders to be used as planters. A variety of flowers, fruits, and vegetables will be grown in these planters, and students will be able to harvest the produce themselves. 

The produce from these plants may not seem like much, but the Respect the Nest project maintains a different goal beyond the yield of fruits and vegetables. The initiative seeks to promote awareness about environmentalism and spread love for the nature around us. While Respect the Nest members have started the planting process in the greenhouse, the community garden initiative really aims at collaborating with students all over campus- across disciplines, classes, and social groups- to participate in an undertaking bigger than themselves.

The educational benefits that come with the community garden is what ultimately encouraged the committee to launch this project. Gardening provides several benefits for the environment by improving air and soil quality. The committee hopes to convey the importance of the environmental benefits of gardening in this initiative. 

Beyond that, the garden can also be used as a resource to enhance class content on campus. Respect the Nest has already been collaborating with the Biology department on the gardening initiative and hopes to embed aspects of the garden project into Saint Anselm’s education through providing new learning opportunities.

Kevin Macarelli, co-chair of the Respect the Nest committee, elaborates on the value of the education provided by the garden. “The community garden project will be educating Anselmians on how to better care for place. We all live on the Hilltop, and ultimately the duty for caring for it falls on us.”

At the heart of it, the project encourages students from all sorts of backgrounds and experiences to come together to engage with our own ecosystem on campus. By including cross-campus collaborations, the community garden initiative exemplifies our Anselmian values. 

As Macarelli explains, “Respect the Nest strongly believes that to truly make a difference through sustainability and other eco-friendly avenues, there must be a collaborative and collective effort, which is why we decided to make the community garden initiative a community-wide project.”

So, how do students get involved in the community garden project? Respect the Nest is hosting an interest meeting this upcoming Wednesday, March 1st at 4pm in the Event Space, where students can get involved with growing their own plants for the garden. Plants can be grown in your dorm room or in the greenhouse, with the end goal of re-planting them in the community garden. Their motto explains the concept clearly: “Adopt your plant, grow your plant, graduate your plant!”

So, what are you waiting for? You can become a part of this collaborative project by attending the interest meeting or reaching out to Respect the Nest via email [email protected] or Instagram @sacrespectthenest. Adopt your plant today!