BY CHRIS FORTUNE
Mary and Michael Kirkendoll are working on a community garden to serve local senior citizens.
The couple owns the Hammert building at 706 Main St. and decided to place a garden next door. Mary Kirkendoll said the garden is about the size of a quarter acre and is an ongoing project that started two years ago with the assistance of a few others in the community.
“There was a plot that was open, and it was just lots of weeds and lots of grass,” she said. “We wanted to test it out for a couple of years before we opened it up to the community.”
The Kirkendolls’ advocacy for senior citizens served as inspiration for the community garden. They are involved with the Senior Resource Center for Douglas County and the Eudora Senior Foundation.
“This year we thought, ‘Why not open it up to the community and make it a little more focused?’” Mary Kirkendoll said. “Doing the community garden for seniors would be a wonderful way to bring the community together for something important.”
Michael Kirkendoll said Eudora residents have already donated gardening supplies. He’s looking forward to what the garden has to offer.
“The opportunity at harvest time to be able to provide the Eudora seniors with some homegrown, healthy, organic vegetables for free and just make that available for people that need it and want it is pretty exciting,” he said.
The garden will yield different types of fruits, vegetables and herbs, including tomatoes, eggplants, cucumbers, lettuce, dill and peppers. The Kirkendolls are looking for volunteers to help tend to it.
“We’ll be putting together workdays for the people that are interested,” he said. “We’ll put schedules up to allot for the right amount of people in the garden at a time and make sure people are getting to do the work they want to do.”
The Kirkendolls also receive assistance from Fulks Lawn & Landscape. They offered to work on the design of the community garden, level the garden and donate product.
Aman Reaka is also continuing to help with the garden. He has worked with the Kirkendolls in the garden over the last two years and said help from the community is important.
“Whoever can help with a donation of anything like a tool, straw, mulch or anything,” he said. “Another man’s trash is another man’s treasure.”
Reaka provided tomatoes, eggplants and peppers, which will be added to the garden soon.
Mary Kirkendoll said she has appreciated everyone who has dropped off donations at the garden. She was excited about the relationships between generations being built among the volunteers as work continued in the garden Monday.
“It is totally intergenerational, which like brought me to tears,” she said. “We had two kids, we had a woman in her 70s, we had a therapy dog, my husband and I were out, people stopped by to bring things. It was really a sweet day.”
She said there may be a harvesting day for the seniors around late July and into August if people are comfortable with it, or they may bag the vegetables and have people sign up in advance.
“We’re making these decisions based on how things go this summer,” she said. “We would like people to be able to harvest themselves because that’s so fun.”
For those wishing to help with the garden, volunteers can reach out via the Yoga of Kindness Facebook page or email Mary@yogaofkindness.com.
Reach Chris Fortune at eudoratimes@gmail.com.
Comments