Community Garden

HONORS COLLEGE GARDEN INSPIRES COMMUNITY

IN SUMMER OF 2020, in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, Honors advisor Meg Stowe realized that many of her students were feeling isolated and stressed. Looking for ways to build community in a virtual environment, Stowe approached Dean

Charles Adams with the idea to start an Honors Community Garden.

With his support and the work of more than 50 student volunteers that summer, Stowe supervised the transformation of an overgrown student vegetable plot in the USF Botanical Gardens into a fully-functioning and producing garden.

Seeing the opportunity for both service and hands-on experiential learning, Stowe created a syllabus focused on food sovereignty and environmental literature for use in an inaugural JGHC Community Garden Service-Learning course. The students in the course worked together to build robust community around the Honors garden, forming partnerships with Religious Studies, the USF Agrarian Club, Delta Tau Delta, WellFed Community, and the USF Urban Food Sovereignty Group, all while earning 50 hours of community service.

The food grown in the garden is donated to the USF Feed-A-Bull Food Pantry and Feeding Tampa Bay, in addition to being used in class to practice preparing healthy meals and learning about ecology.

“During my time in the garden, I not only learned how to keep plants alive, but I also became fascinated by the amount of change gardens can motivate in the world,” says Dora Rodriguez, Honors student and Vice President of the garden’s Executive Board. “The ability of our community garden to produce healthy food for students in the community in a sustainable and ethical manner was inspiring. Going forward I plan to expand the impact of our garden and encourage other members of the community to start their own leafy journey.”

Top: Honors student and staff volunteers show their Bull pride while working in the garden.

Bottom Left: Each plot in the garden is designated for different vegetables and herbs.

Bottom Right: Honors student, Kobe Phillips, works in the garden in his bee-keeping gear.

The garden has also created leadership opportunities. Rodriguez, for instance, co-leads the garden’s Executive Board with Honors student Kobe Phillips. Phillips explained how his experiences working, learning, and now teaching in the garden have changed him. “Metamorphosis is a concept we tend to associate with bugs, yet, in the Honors Community Garden I grew wings,” he says. “My experiences with the community garden transformed my perception of my relationship with food and brought me back to my roots. This epiphany moved me to teach other students about the impact

The ability of our community garden to produce healthy food for students in the community in a sustainable and ethical manner was inspiring.”

– Dora Rodriguez

ACTIVITIES

community gardens can have on themselves and their communities.”

With all of its benefits – food sovereignty, sustainability education, nutrition lessons, leadership opportunities, and more – the garden continues to fulfill the mission that Stowe outlined at the start: build a community that connects the students. “The garden made me feel like I was never away from home – like a had a place where all my work and study stress was left behind,” says Krish Veera, an international Honors student. “It was just me and the greenery and this sense of togetherness with the amazing people around me. It made me feel like I wasn’t a stranger… like I was one of its own.”

A garden expansion to include new fruit trees and additional vegetable plots is planned for 2022.