Club & Community Service

LAURA DEPRADO PHOTOUpdate on "Rotary and Rutgers
Growing Lives One Seed at a Time”

Laura DePrado, Director
Club and Community Service

Union County Pilot Kick Off Ceremony

On Saturday June 23, 2012, the official "kickoff" ceremony of the Union County pilot site for the Rotary and Rutgers Enabling Garden: Growing Lives One Seed at a Time initiative was held at a Community Access Unlimited property in Roselle. The house is occupied by participants in a Community Access Unlimited group home program. Through a "Come Grow With Us!" community garden plant buy, Groundwork Elizabeth was able to donate vegetables and flowers for planting. Collaborative partners in attendance included Art Lobdell from Rotary International District 7510, Madeline Flahive DiNardo of Rutgers Cooperative Extension, Mary Roberts of the Rutgers Master Gardeners of Union County, Jackie Park Albaum of Come Grow With Us, and Joseph Calabrese of Community Access Unlimited.

To date, the Union County pIlot site project consists of a garden classroom where people from the community can be instructed on garden techniques and bring gardening back to their own locations. Planted on-site are a small vegetable garden in raised beds, flowers in large pots, and accent plants around a tree in the front yard. The intent of the project is to bring gardening to the special needs community of Community Access and others in the community.

Phase two currently in design by Rutgers Department of Landscape Architecture will include an expanded ornamental front yard garden and a large vegetable garden in the rear of the house. A seed grant from Home Depot was obtained by Community Access to start the project through the efforts of Sharon Passas of CAU.

New Mercer County Liaison 

Claudia Stepien has taken over the position of Liaison (formerly held by Jerry Levanduski) for "Rotary Rutgers Growing Lives One Seed at a Time." Claudia is a past president of the Robbinsville-Hamilton Club. Her contact information is [email protected] and her phone number is 609-954-7002. 

Click on "read more" below for more information about the Enabling Gardens initiative. 



~ District Conference...

There was a plenary session at the District Conference where we distributed the latest news about our initiative with Rutgers, presented by Nick Polanin.  Nick is our  co-coordinator at Rutgers, who also provided these posters that were on display during the Conference.  

Poster 1 - an overall review of the Giving Gardens initiative.

Poster 2 - diagrams and photos of several of the garden sites.

Please see the following links for Rutgers web pages highlighting our Rotary and Rutgers Enabling Garden initiative and event :

http://njaes.rutgers.edu/ - one of three highlighted program areas (wait for the photo to change, ours if the first of three photos).

http://njaes.rutgers.edu/spotlight/rotary.asp - the spotlight page itself

http://execdeanagriculture.rutgers.edu/message/2012/execdean-2012-March.pdf - page 3 Executive Dean’s Monthly Report

We also gave out several handouts at the Conference; they are included here:

Gardens handout 1

Gardens handout 2

Seed Starting handout 


~ Our Gardens are Growing...

Here are the pilot locations for this exciting initiative that were announced on Friday, March 23, at the Floriculture Greenhouse on Cook Campus of Rutgers University. After nearly one year of planning, the seventeen member Rotary Rutgers Strategic Planning Committee selected the following initial sites for Phase 1 (March to November 2012) :
  • Hunterdon County – Hunterdon County office of Rutgers Cooperative Extension, Rt. 12 County Complex, Flemington
  • Middlesex County – Rutgers University Floriculture Greenhouses, George H. Cook campus, New Brunswick
  • Somerset County – The Carrier Clinic, Montgomery 
  •  Union County - a Community Action Unlimited group home in Roselle.  
Three additional sites are pending.

~Project News and International Connections Growing ...

We continue communications with the members of the Rotary Club of Matsudo Higashi in Tokyo, Japan who have inquired about the project via the Executive Dean of Chiba University. Dr. Fujii of Chiba made a presentation to that Club about the project on February 3rd. As a result, the Matsudo Higashi Rotary Club formally requested that our District begin discussions with them, preliminary to filing an application for an International Matching Grant, with District 7510 serving as the host site for the project.  


~ The Mission of "Growing Lives One Seed at a Time"

The Goals of the project and pilot site enabling Gardens in Phase 1 (See Mission Statement).

Rutgers faculty and Rotary Liaisons and the HT Committee will be working with the sites, planning activities and planting THIS SPRING!

~ Rutgers Graduate Landscape Architecture Graduate Student...

A special thanks to the Department of Landscape Architecture who made it possible for a Graduate student to achieve credits for independent course to work on designs and drawings for the 170 x 170 u-shaped courtyard at Floriculture (where we held a very successful Greenhouse Tour on November 30th, 2011).

Plans are being made for the student from Mumbaii, India to work this Spring Semester on the project for a second semester.


~ Reminders...

Click here to view photos that show typical project types with a brief description of each.  These examples may help your Club gain some insight into the types of projects that you could implement.

Click here to see guidelines including useful information on your target audience, steps to consider before implementing a project, and much much more. The guidelines give your Club/Committee a good basis on which to make decisions. 

Click here to view our web page with committee members, liaisons, and all the project details.  I remain available to speak at any of our Clubs about this initiative with Rutgers University.  

I am happy to come to your Club and speak; just send me an email and we'll work out a date - [email protected].