Kids help make a neighborhood garden

A group of city kids and their Big Brothers, Big Sisters partners have made a new neighborhood garden from a litter-filled vacant lot.

How they did it is a good example of cooperation among groups trying to improve neighborhoods in the City of St. Louis.

The kids and adults from the Big Brothers, Big Sisters of Eastern Missouri did the first work on the garden. The garden site is in the Benton Park West neighborhood in south St. Louis.

After getting the garden established, the Big Brothers, Big Sisters group turned it over to neighborhood residents. They will maintain it and develop it further.

But, the Big Brothers, Big Sisters kids and adults plan to come back in the fall. They'll help residents plant flower bulbs that will bloom next spring.

Fourteen-year-old Thaddeus Smith is one of the neighborhood kids who also worked on the garden in the beginning. His mother, Tamya, is one of the neighborhood residents who have agreed to keep up the garden.

The Benton Park West garden isn't a vegetable garden. Rather, it is an ornamental garden with statues, walkways and seats set among the borders of herbs and decorative plants.

Thaddeus is a ninth grader in Lindbergh High School. He, his father and mother joined with 30 adult-kid pairs from Big Brothers, Big Sisters to make the garden.

Since his mother is the garden's caretaker, Thaddeus said he sure he'll be working on garden improvements in the future. One improvement will be the addition of a wrought-iron fence.

Neighbors also want to put in a permanent water source so they can keep the garden green and growing. Right now, a next-door neighbor lets gardeners hook their watering hose to a faucet at the house.

Tajuani Shelton is the program manager for Big Brothers, Big Sisters of Eastern Missouri.

She said the group's kids and adults did more than work on the garden. They also brought money.

The group received a $2,500 grant from Team St. Louis. That's part of the St. Louis 2004 organization that's planning a big 100th anniversary celebration of the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair and Olympics.

Team St. Louis gives mini-grants to groups for local community development projects. The Benton Park West garden project is just the type of effort that group likes to support. And Big Brothers, Big Sisters was the right type of group to get the money.

(If you'd like to know more about Team St. Louis grants, log on to the St. Louis 2004 website at www.stlouis2004.org.)

The money helped provide decorative extras for the garden, such as an arched trellis, a concrete serpent and other statuary along with seats where visitors can relax in the shade.

Ninth Ward Alderman Ken Ortmann got the city to put in a new sidewalk. City work crews donated two big truckloads of wood mulch to make garden pathways.

Also involved in the garden project was Gateway Greening. That's a branch of the Missouri Botanical Garden that gives advice and other help in establishing community gardens. Kristen Lindner is the volunteer coordinator for Gateway Greening and helped with the Benton Park West project.

(For more information about Gateway Greening, you can log on to its website at www.gatewaygreening.org.)

The garden project needed plenty of cooperative effort because the original lot was a mess. A building on the corner lot had been torn down but the area was littered with weeds, bottles and broken concrete. There was even an abandoned ping-pong table.

But, now the lot is a beautiful addition to the neighborhood, which includes a number of newly-built homes.

Big Brothers, Big Sisters of Eastern Missouri usually involves one-on-one friendships between an adult and a kids. They do things together.

Eleven-year-old Terrase is a 6th grader at Dunbar Elementary School. His Big Sister for the last two years has been Angie Tabash.

Terrase said, "We go places together like a Rams football game or a Cardinals baseball game. We also may go to a movie."

Angie said they usually get together about twice a month for some special outing.