By Becky Henninger, SHIM Garden Coordinator
Gardening is an amazing way to feel at peace with nature. As you tend to plants, you see tangible effects of your nurturing. Watching seedlings grow and bloom is incredibly satisfying. Especially if you are growing food, gardening can be immensely rewarding, as you taste the benefits of your hard work.
As SHIM Community Garden’s Program Manager, I build partnerships with local congregations and community groups who want to join our network of Community Gardens. I also manage the garden at SHIM Center in Bethel Park as well as our Whitehall Peace & Community Garden in Whitehall.
Like many of our supporters, I decided to volunteer when my kids got older and became more independent. As a South Hills native and current South Hills resident, I turned to SHIM to find a way to give back. I learned they were to start a community garden program, so I joined the team.
Although I grew up surrounded by nature, I didn’t fall in love with gardening until adulthood. As a child, one of my responsibilities was to help weed and maintain my dad’s large vegetable garden. I was unaware at the time what I was learning in the garden – patience and appreciation for what the earth can provide, and the amazing taste of a freshly picked tomato warmed by the sun. Gardening felt like a chore until I became a parent and was looking for opportunities to be outside in nature with my children. I began taking them to the nursery each year to choose several plants of their own to care for through the summer. Through gardening, they learned core life skills – responsibility, patience, the importance of nurturing and the miracle that is contained in one small seed. For me, gardening became therapeutic as it provided an escape from the chaos of life. As the kids became more independent teens involved in sports and school activities, I had the time to further my education and learn more about the science behind growing vegetables and flowers. I enrolled in Phipps Conservatory and Botanical Gardens Master Gardener Program and became a Phipps Master Gardener in 2011. 
When SHIM decided to start the Community Garden program in 2012, it was just a big idea from executive director Jim Guffey. Jim was ready to stop mowing so much grass and wanted to use the land to provide food for SHIM’s food pantries. I knew that I needed to volunteer a certain number of hours to maintain my Master Gardener certification, so the opportunity felt perfectly timed.
Two other volunteers joined the cause, and we began planning the first SHIM garden. We mapped out the space and figured out what would be manageable for the three of us to build, plant and maintain. Our first year, we grew 1,500 pounds of food and learned a lot, including how much we underestimated the amount of work it would be!
Our garden at SHIM Center in Bethel Park is very visible. Located on busy South Park Rd, people passing by were curious about what we were doing and would stop to ask about the garden. After seeing how successful the garden was at producing food for our pantries, Jim decided to expand the program to neighboring congregations. He convinced Hamilton Presbyterian Church to designate a portion of their property and Hamilton Church built our first partner garden. The infrastructure of the garden was built by an Eagle Scout. Several other gardens followed each year, and now in our fourteenth year we have 14 community gardens in the SHIM Community Gardens network.
I share my experiences and knowledge with congregations to help them establish their gardens. The model for the program relies on congregations providing labor and materials for their own gardens, but I’m able to guide them in finding the right site, recruiting volunteers, and learning about grants to help fund the gardens’ establishment. I also emphasize how much work is involved in getting a garden started and maintained, so congregations can decide whether they have enough volunteers to build and maintain their own SHIM garden. Over time, I developed a clear timeline to share with congregations and community groups, offering step by step instructions to help them in their process.
As SHIM’s Community Garden program grew, it became clear that a part-time staff position was needed to oversee things. I was the natural fit and was thrilled to join SHIM’s dedicated staff team. For more than a decade, we’ve been able to support our gardens with dedicated volunteers and generous funding. I’m grateful to be part of such an important effort to provide fresh produce to SHIM’s clients.
The impact of SHIM’s Community Garden program is immense. Not only does it provide thousands of pounds of fresh produce for SHIM’s food pantries, but it brings people together. The congregations and community groups who grow the food create an outreach program that gives their congregants a way to directly help their South Hills neighbors. It educates the volunteers about food insecurity within our community. In our Whitehall Peace and Community Garden, many of our volunteers are elder non-English speakers, and the garden gives them a social outlet to participate in an intergenerational community activity. SHIM’s Community Gardens provide food pantry clients access to nutritious and culturally curated fruits and vegetables.
I’m looking forward to a full growing season in our Bethel Park SHIM Center Garden this year! Last year, we couldn’t start planting until June due to the facility’s renovation. This year, we already have plants growing! We’ve added trellising to increase our vertical growing capacity, and we planted fruit trees around the building to further increase our yield. I’ve been learning about maintaining fruit trees and am looking forward to harvesting cherries, pears, and persimmons along with blueberries and strawberries.
We wouldn’t be where we are without very generous sponsors. Grow Pittsburgh has helped fund several very large garden projects, including building our Whitehall Peace & Community Garden and rebuilding our garden at SHIM Center after the renovation was completed. Evey Hardware remains a committed partner, donating equipment usage, labor, and materials in support of our South Hills neighbors. They even donated machinery and employees when we needed help moving a raised bed garden from one location to another. Thanks also to Broniak & Kraf who start the majority of our seedlings each season.
Our program is unique in its dedication to growing foods specifically for the people accessing SHIM’s food pantries. Along with more common vegetables like zucchini, green peppers, tomatoes, Swiss chard and collard greens, we grow vegetables that are culturally significant to our refugee and immigrant neighbors, like bitter gourds, bottle gourds, mustard greens, okra, daikon radishes, hot peppers and long beans. This focus on the people we serve reflects a wider emphasis on empowering people to meet basic needs and achieve self-sufficiency. By providing holistic help, through healthy foods and additional resources, SHIM enables individuals and families to keep their dignity while facing challenges.
Another benefit of our Community Garden program is its connection to learning opportunities. Every year, I engage students from SHIM’s Early Childhood, After School, and Summer Camp programs. I teach them about soil, seeds, worms, the importance of planting native plants for pollinators in the garden and growing food. We also plant flowers for loved ones and eat salads grown from our gardens! I’m hoping to increase our educational opportunities for SHIM programs as well as the community by including local partners like Allegheny Land Trust, Phipps, Grow Pittsburgh, and Tree Pittsburgh.
The beauty of our community garden program is its ability to combine resources to meet a greater need. SHIM is able to manage a large-scale garden operation by working together with our community partners – as they say “many hands make light work”. Thanks to our generous supporters- both financial and physical- we have 14 gardens harvesting 15,000+ pounds of produce each year to help feed neighbors in need!
If you’re looking to get involved in our garden program, I have a few quick tips:
• You don’t need any gardening experience- we will teach you all that you need to know!
• You do need to be prepared to get dirt under your fingernails. This job is dirty!
• Don’t be afraid of bugs- some of them are actually helping our plants grow!
• You must enjoy working outside (sometimes in light rain). It’s refreshing and therapeutic!
I think nature is just amazing. Everything a plant needs comes from a small seed. When you nurture it and tend to it, the plant produces food. I see parallels within SHIM’s work. We all need a little nurturing to be our best selves. With tender love and care, we bloom into self-sufficient community members. Our community gardens bring us together in support of the greater good. Join our volunteer team today at www.shimcares.org/volunteer!
