Green Thumbs Up for God
The church garden came from a desire to bring a love of gardening and fresh food to the children of Christ Church, UCC in Des Plaines. I have attended this church since I was 7 years old and am now quite involved in the youth activities that take place there. On a cold day last fall, I was talking with Barb Bay, a mother, Sunday School teacher, and former Superintendent of the Education Department at the church. She and her family garden also and I was lamenting on about our lack of space at the church to implement a vegetable garden. Barb said, "Well, we could do it and make it into our Summer Sundays program!" And so a plan was hatched. We took over 4 parking spaces and converted them into a fairly large container garden. We created a Sunday School curriculum to coincide with the garden. These days, we have five permanent wooden beds in the parking lot that are beautiful and quite productive. The kids and young adults of the church learn about how and why God wants us to take care of the planet and use the land to feed ourselves and others. As a group, we collectively garden and when we reap our harvest, we will share what we grow with various food pantries and our congregation. There are not many more wonderful things than a group of children coming together to grow fresh food to feed those who have none. We hope to provide for many in our community, or any community that will take our fresh produce.