For more than 35 years, Harriet Stout, former principal of Washington and Henry Elementary School, cultivated the development of students, teachers and the community. Now the semi-retired educator is plowing her experience into the development of a community garden at Immanuel Episcopal Church to help feed hungry families in nearby counties.

Stout and a team of other parishioners broke ground on the 100-by-100-foot “Garden of Grace” in a field next to the church at 3263 Old Church Road in Mechanicsville last spring.
Since then, they’ve delivered more than 1,500 pounds of vegetables, including tomatoes, peppers, green beans, kale, zucchini and yellow squash to The CornerStone Food Bank in Aylett. Lima beans and collard greens are being harvested.

The produce supplements canned food that Immanuel has been donating to the food bank for many years.

Operated by St. David’s Community Development Center, the food bank receives donations from numerous area churches and organizations.

Last year, the center provided food to 13,750 households in King William and King and Queen counties.

“They’ve been incredibly grateful for the produce, and they seem to enjoy the steady stream of fresh vegetables,” the Rev. Ryan Kuratko, rector of Immanuel, said. He delivers fresh vegetables and donations of canned goods to the food bank each week.

Kuratko said the idea for the garden emerged about a year ago after parishioners met to determine what Immanuel’s vision and mission should be for the next few years. Although Stout has almost no gardening experience, he asked her to take the lead on the project because “she has a heart for outreach,” and he needed someone who could work with and organize people.

During her career, Stout worked in Hanover County Public Schools for 29 years. She was a teacher, assistant principal and principal at Washington and Henry, assistant principal at Henry Clay Elementary School and a teacher at Gandy Elementary School.

Since she retired, she has coached first-year principals part-time through the EduLead program at Virginia Commonwealth University. She also works part-time for Hanover County Public Schools.

Before she started working on the garden project, Stout volunteered at a local free health clinic at the Shady Grove Methodist Church, where she was inspired by the difference the program was making in the lives of the people it served.

“When an opportunity came at my own church to be involved with the planning, development and implementation of our vision for an outreach project, I just had to get involved,” she said.

She added that “gardening is similar to education . . . both involve commitment, patience, nurturing, cultivation and community support. It’s also very rewarding to reap the results.”

Stout credits Charlie Causey and Jane Ruffin, who are experienced gardeners and church members, with determining what crops to plant and when and how to plant them. Other core members of the Immanuel’s gardening team include: Cheryl Anderson, Janice Fernette, Frederico Garza, Susan Greene, Jerry Jarvis, Maria Koenig, Anne Piland and Linden Updike.

Ruffin, who is a master gardener, also was instrumental in getting the garden accredited by the Virginia Cooperative Extension Office in Hanover County as a place where master gardeners can log volunteer hours toward their certification.

Kuratko said he was “wonderstruck” by the initial success of the garden and the participation of the community.

Area residents, middle school students, boy scouts, girl scouts, master gardeners have helped with soil preparation, picking weeding and making compost bins and water barrels.

In addition, local resident Tommy West invited church members to glean tomatoes, melons, eggplants, peppers and other vegetables from his garden to add to the harvest for the pantry.

Stout said she hopes other local farmers will contact her if they have vegetables they would like to share.

To help fund initial costs to establish the garden, Immanuel received a $2,500 Mustard Seed Grant from the Diocese of Virginia. Local businesses, including Home Depot in Mechanicsville, Southern States in King William County, Joe P. Clark Inc., and Ferguson Enterprises, also donated goods and offered discounts on gardening supplies.

In the future, Kuratko said he hopes the garden will expand – the church has five acres that could be cultivated.

He also said the garden has the potential to serve as an outdoor classroom for public or private schools in the Richmond area.

He said he hopes that someday the families served by the food pantry will have an opportunity to take gardening classes at Immanuel and receive starter kits to grow gardens of their own.

“We’re a small church with a big dream,” Stout said. (About 100 people attend services on Sunday.) “Volunteers and community support are fundamental to keeping the program alive and moving forward. We’re looking for ways to develop a sustainable source of volunteers who would help maintain the development of our current garden and support our interest in enlarging it and developing educational resources and programs . . .”

Immanuel Church invites members of the community to join the picking (and anything else that needs to be done) on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m.

Families with young children should contact Stout in advance to arrange for age-appropriate activities.

Stout can be reached at 781-0520 or harriet.stout@gmail.com.

For more information, call the church office at 779-3454 or visit www.immanueloc.org.

Photo submitted by Paula Neely
Jerry Jarvis tills soil between rows of peppers and heirloom tomatoes.