Arthur Levitt Public Affairs Center

Sharon Topi

315-859-4451

315-859-4477 (fax)

Utica Community Garden

The Levitt Center supports service learning projects that help to build and maintain a community garden at the site of Adrean Terrace/F.X. Matt/N.D. Peters Apartments, a public housing complex run by the Utica Municipal Housing Authority. The community garden is open to all residents of the apartments and have the goal of facilitating the consumption of locally grown produce as well as encourging community development. The 40 participating families each register for an individual raised-bed garden plot and are drawn from Utica's large immigrant community, including former refugees from Russia, Belarus, Somalia, Bosnia and Ukraine. Many of these residents are also served by Hamilton students via their involvement in the Levitt Center's service learning project SHINE.

The project was initiated by Jenney Stringer '08, who was supported by a Levitt Center Summer Civic Engagement Fellowship supervised by Associate Director of Community Research Judy Owens-Manley. Stringer enlisted support from Home Depot's Team Depot in building the gardens and the project will receive ongoing support from a grant provided by the Community Foundation of Herkimer and Oneida Counties. Both Home Deport and Walmart donated $250 towards the start-up costs for the garden. Stringer will continue her work in establishing the gardens during the Fall 2007 semester as part of an independent study project supervised by Dr. Owens-Manley. The Community Garden Project will engage students in other academic courses at Hamilton, including Bio/ES 150: Society and the Environment with Professor Bill Pfitsch in Spring 2008.