Blessed to be a Blessing: Vineyard Columbus Volunteers at the SACG

This morning, approximately 1,000 members of the Vineyard Columbus church volunteered throughout the City of Columbus to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the church with a giant servant evangelism event. Eight of them – in matching t-shirts -- volunteered at the Stoddart Avenue Community Garden weeding and watering the food pantry, pepper, and bean plots, staking and tying tomatoes, weeding and watering flower beds, weeding along the alley, picking up litter in the greater Stoddart Avenue neighborhood and harvesting approximately fifteen pounds of produce to donate to the Lutheran Social Services food pantry at Frebis and Champion on the near south side of Columbus.

Sandy Lindsey – who tends a plot at the SACG with her daughter, Kelly, organized the group and kept them sugared up and hydrated. She was the first to arrive. Two members of the group were serious gardeners and stayed behind after everyone else had left around noon because they could not stop pulling weeds. And we have a lot of weeds. They are welcome at the SACG anytime.

SACG gardeners Beth and Rayna came by to clean up their plots and to harvest produce. Rayna donated yellow tomatoes from her own garden. After almost everyone had left, Barb & Frank came to clean up their plot and donated a boat load of tomatoes and squash (as well as basil for our weekly barter delivery to Bexley Pizza Plus).  

Taking picture with someone else's cell phone



I showed our gardeners our new toys which were delivered yesterday and was able to try out our new solar-powered pump.

As I was packing up to leave, a photographer from the Vineyard Church showed up to photograph the Garden, and I had to explain to him that he had just missed the Vineyard volunteers. Two of the neighbor girls had stopped by for sweets and to play in the sand box, and so Kenaya and I (in all of my sweaty glory) posed for pictures to be shown at tonight and tomorrow morning’s church service.

SACG Gardener Kelly was splitting her time between two Vineyard volunteer groups that were assigned to the Weinland Park Community Garden and the Highland Youth Community Garden in the Hilltop. In the meantime, Urban Connections had organized a different group of volunteers to pick up litter along East Main Street in preparation for the Children’s Parade on September 8. For that matter, if you haven’t driven down East Main Street recently, you should see all of the new curbs and curb cuts the City has installed in our neighborhood this summer.

The hard-working Vineyard volunteers did such a nice job of weeding that I’ll be able to spend Labor Day weekend (next Saturday) planting lettuce and turnips for a November pre-Thanksgiving harvest. Many hands make light work:)