Figure 1. A freshman class reflecting on their day of service at the Community Garden, sitting among the beds, compost, and water collection system.

Expanding Partnerships 

In two years, the campus group has expanded from four students and two staff members to over 20 students and six staff members. In addition, partnerships have been created with engineering classes, the engineering club, the Hispanic Outreach Program, the Juvenile Mentoring Program, the campus volunteering center, Campus Ministry, Crestwood High School, Coughlin High School, the Hildebrant Learning Center, Ruth’s Place, and The Wilkes-Barre Department of Health. Jessica Britten, a founder and our Winter Semester Intern, she has been able to develop a partnership with the King’s College Community Garden that will allow for the students to also try out this new innovation in the Spring.

EPCAMR is joining and supporting them in their efforts to unite the community and promote sustainable lifestyles by donating boxes from the Growboxx project, which will be placed in one of ten of the garden’s plots to be utilized for their second harvest.

EPCAMR Involvement 

Staff members Denise, Laura, Robert, and Shawnese have been working with The Growboxx project from Groasis, an extremely innovative Dutch company, by sharing the initiative with elementary schools in the community. The project promotes sustainability in every aspect by upholding the company’s goal of, “‘low cost, less water, faster growth”’. EPCAMR is fortunate to be a part of bringing their innovative sustainability tactics to high poverty area school districts throughout the Wyoming Valley, Luzerne County, PA.

The Community Garden could not be more thrilled to learn from EPCAMR and share the international initiative with King’s College and the surrounding community.  Each Growboxx increases the survival rate of plant species by 90% while also using 90% less water. Following EPCAMR’s suggestion, the garden will be growing native raspberry plants along with herbs in these “intelligent buckets”.

Figure 2. A Growboxx that will be used in the garden in support of their second harvest.

Growing Community

Bringing this project to the garden will build bridges between different populations in the city and surrounding municipalities, now stretching as far as the Netherlands. Creating relationships and continuity between people is a goal of the garden’s and creating collective change in the community through environmental initiatives has been a goal of EPCAMR’s. This mutualistic partnership is guaranteed to make a lasting impact on our combined communities.

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The project will also include an educational aspect where children are taught about the importance of growing their own fruits and vegetables along with coal mining history of the Wyoming Valley and even nutrition. Laura Rinehimer, Watershed Outreach Education Specialist at EPCAMR, explained, “This project provides an opportunity for youth to learn about plants first-hand through engaging in the process of growing vegetables from seed to table.” Rinehimer is responsible for creating a multidisciplinary, standards aligned curriculum for the project that will be provided to area teachers in the targeted school districts we would like to work with in the Wyoming Valley.  In addition to the Growboxxes^© and gardening supplies, several iPads will also be distributed to local schools so that they can share their experiences with children around the world through a concurrent project taking place in Ethiopia. Claudia Meglin is managing the project for Inquiring Systems, Inc. “We are looking forward to deepening our collaboration with EPCAMR to empower communities that have suffered under the demise of capitalistic extraction”.  Additionally, a documentary will be filmed to monitor the growth of the project, run by videographer John Welsh.

The mission of the grant is to help youth in the coal region reclaim their backyards. This region was heavily extracted for Anthracite coal for nearly 200 years. Many of the miners lived in company houses and already spent the majority of their earned income at the company store through the use of scrips. In order to become more self-sustaining people grew their own foods in patchwork gardens. In doing so, they reclaimed their freedom from the mining companies. “While EPCAMR normally focuses on reclaiming land and polluted mine water, this project will allow us to reclaim the backyards of residents located in previously mining impacted areas and provide families with an option to garden together and grow some healthy food options much like the mining families of the past,” said Executive Director at EPCAMR, Bobby Hughes.

Today, children in the region face a different type of oppression. 58% of individuals lie below the poverty level. For families with no transportation, often times, the easiest and cheapest food options are fast food or processed food options from local convenient stores. The focus area for the project can be seen as a food desert in many ways and it is difficult for people without vehicles to make trips to grocery stores to obtain nutritious, fresh fruits and vegetables. By teaching kids to grow their own food, it will help reclaim the freedom to eat healthy and make informed nutrition choices.

EPCAMR plans to partner with local Luzerne County children in the 4^th grade class in the following schools and organizations: The Graham Academy, Wilkes-Barre Area, Nanticoke Area and Hanover Area. Mt. Zion Baptists Church youth and Good Shepherd Lutheran Church youth from the Greater Wilkes-Barre Area will also be involved. Staff will be reaching out to the School Districts and the Churches shortly. EPCAMR is patiently awaiting the arrival of 200 Growboxxes. If it is successful with the classrooms that we will be looking to work with, we will be making an appeal to Groasis to provide us with additional Growboxxes to get them to each of the other 4th grade classes in each of the school districts to reach even more youth and families in the Wyoming Valley. A pilot program will start in the fall with the full-blown program commencing in the spring.  For more information on the project, contact EPCAMR at (570) 371-3522.

A lemon tree in combination with melons using Growboxx technologies to flourish.

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