SUMMER 2009

The Peace Garden

Liz Shay & Karen Barlow
Seaville MM

Additional Photos
from Seaville Meeting
(not in print edition)

Sisters Eliza, Alma and Fionna Janson
(with Karen Barlow kneeling and
Liz Shay in background)

Winter kept us warm, covering
Earth in forgetful snow, feeding
A little life with dried tubers.
—T. S. Eliot

On an icy February evening in the Friends’ meetinghouse of Seaville, N.J., just a few miles west of the cold Atlantic Ocean breezes, a gathering of Friends was fertile ground for the seeds of a new idea. Fred Long, coordinator of our Peace and Social Concerns Committee, shared with us the article “Building Community, One Meal at a Time” by Virginia Lockett (Friends Journal, December 2008). The focus of the article, that meetings can build community as well as a “localvore” culture by promoting local foods and sharing meals, led to our discovery that several people in our meeting are growing their own vegetables, eggs, honey, and even meat. Another of our members, Ken Thompson, had begun his first CSA (Community Supported Agriculture)— in which customers buy shares in the farm’s production—and sold out within a couple of weeks of his offering to our meeting’s members.

Our Peace and Social Concerns Committee has generally focused on issues much farther from home. But as members brainstormed ideas for our new endeavor—expanding the meeting’s Website to include local foods, book reviews, and recipes, starting a compost pile, and donating fresh vegetables to the local food bank—the enthusiasm for creating something to extend community within the meeting while creating positive local change began to take shape. The decision to create a garden as an activity for our First-day School was made that night.

Griffin Haviland
plants a future
harvest
photos by Bill Barlow

Good food always brings our meeting together. Plans for the garden were announced over a grand potluck in early February. The children offered the name “The Peace Garden,” and dedicated it to the memory of Jean Fuschillo, a dedicated gardener, Quaker, and moving presence at Seaville. Plans also began within First-day School to design Seaville’s colorful Yearly Meeting banner around the Peace Garden theme. And it was decided that henceforth, the Peace and Social Concerns Committee would combine their meetings with a monthly potluck after worship on the first Sunday of each month. During that time, planning for the garden would be discussed along with other committee concerns.

In late March, Betsy and John Barry braved the elements to bush hog and plow a large garden alongside our social gathering building, Friendship Hall. And in mid-April our ideas became reality as we joined the children in removing roots and weeds. One more tilling and the seeds will be going into the ground. The seeds that we plant will become the food of future potlucks. Meeting members are starting to talk about designing companion planting, flowers, and herbs into the fabric of the garden. Our inventory of donated seeds and garden implements is growing … and so is the compost pile. Our vision for this garden is rooted in Quaker simplicity and sustainability. Our goal is that all of us, not only the children, will see in action that they reap what they sow.

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