In planters that line the sidewalk in front of The Boys & Girls Club of Easton are fresh bunches of green basil, tall tomato plants, and bright yellow squash blossoms that will hopefully bear vegetables for the 160 kids who attend a summer program at the club in Easton’s Neston Heights neighborhood.
Gardening, especially for such a large group, is tricky, said Annette Lalka, a Boys & Girls Club volunteer and Easton Middle School teacher
Bound by the confines of a pot, students are limited in what they can grow. Lalka quietly confides that the squash probably won’t develop into pendulous gourds as long as its roots are contained so tightly.
That won’t be the case much longer, though.
Plans call for the property at the rear of the Boys & Girls Club in Easton’s South Side will be transformed by next year into a garden built into the slope of the hill where there should be enough space to feed the entire neighborhood.
There will be 53 raised bed boxes, each 6 feet long and 2 feet wide, and an 8-by-16 greenhouse. Natural irrigation would be provided by a rain barrel system supplied with precipitation from the club’s roof.
At the base of the hill will be a handicapped accessible playground with swings and slides. Even the garden will be accessible, with a row of boxes that are tall enough for someone in a wheelchair to easily tend.
The $290,000 project is being funded by the Kiwanis Club of Easton. So far, the club has raised $263,000 through grants and private donations.
They plan to break ground on the project Wednesday.
Dean Young, executive director of the Boys & Girls Club of Easton, said a focus on healthy eating is becoming more important with issues such as rising obesity rates compounded by limited access to fresh fruit and vegetables.
A couple years ago the club started teaching healthy cooking classes and gardening classes soon followed.
Children, particularly the younger ones, enjoy planting seeds and learning how they grow, Lalka said. The “icing on the cake,” is getting to turn the fruits of their labor into delicious and healthy meals, she added.
On Friday, Lalka planned to show students how make a veggie-loaded pasta dish topped with basil from their own garden.
“We are looking to increase healthy skills, and increase fruit and vegetable consumption. We also wanted to help eradicate the food desert here,” Young said.
A food desert is an urban area where it’s considered difficult to buy fresh food.
In 2016, Bill Walters, president of the Kiwanis Club of Easton, asked Young if he would like assistance in constructing a playground at the Boys & Girls Club.
The hope was to break ground on the playground in time for the Kiwanis Club of Easton’s 100th anniversary this month, and Walters initially gave his organization the goal of raising $100,000 for the project.
“At the end of our 100th anniversary meeting, I told the members, ‘go big or go home,’” Walters said.
It was that mindset that led Walters to eventually expand the Kiwanis’ commitment to add a community garden at a total of $290,000.
The Boys & Girls Club of Easton lost many of its outdoor facilities during a rebuilding of the surrounding South Side neighborhood 10 years ago.
The neighborhood was once known as the Delaware Terrace Public Housing Complex, and the club is located on leased land owned by the Easton Housing Authority.
In 2008, under the HOPE VI renovation project, Delaware Terrace was razed and replaced with 40 senior cottages, 56 family rentals and 48 private homes that became Neston Heights.
A putting green and playground were lost as a result of the project, but the Boys & Girls Club of Easton did gain a new community center as part of the revitalization.
The club has been around since 1974, and moved into its new location at 210 Jones Houston Way in 2011.
“This isn’t just about fun and games. It’s a hub where we want to see kids continue to grow and continue to have positive experiences through mentors,” said Young, who has worked for the Boys & Girls Club of Easton for 39 years.
He has a vision of community involvement that includes developing outdoor facilities that will serve the surrounding neighborhood. The garden and playground are only the first step.
In 2013, Young commissioned Lafayette College students in Professor Paul Felder’s architecture class to create a master plan for the exterior of the Boys & Girls Club based on the theme of “fitness, nutrition and community building.”
They came up with amenities such as an amphitheater where outdoor concerts and poetry readings can be held; a soccer field and track; sculptures, card tables where people can play outdoor chess and checkers, and a water feature, like a splash pad or small pool.
The total for everything, including the playground and garden, is estimated to be about $2.5 million.
The playground and garden were identified as one of the top necessities and students from Felder’s class designed something that would work with the constraints of the hillside property behind the Boys & Girls Club. There were 15 to 20 students who worked on the overall master plan, and another four who spent their whole semester designing projects for the club, Felder said.
The community garden was identified as one of the most important items to implement from the master plan because it didn’t cost as much money as some of the other projects, and it would advance the club’s goal of bringing nutrition to the neighborhood, Felder said.
The playground is expected to be installed by mid-September, with the community garden to follow hopefully next year. The garden will be managed in a partnership with the Easton Area Neighborhood Center.
Both Walters and Young talk about having outdoor concerts, community barbecues using fresh vegetables from the gardens, and even creating new branches of the Kiwanis Club that could utilize the year-round space at the Boys & Girls Club.
“Fitness and socialization, these are things we want to come together in a central location,” Young said. “This will be a magnet that will get people out of their homes and outside interacting.”
Boys & Girls Club of Easton Community Garden and Playground groundbreaking
When: 11 a.m. Wednesday
Where: Boys & Girls Club of Easton, 210 Jones Houston Way
What: The groundbreaking will be followed by open house tours of the Boys & Girls Club.
To donate: For more information on the community garden and playground project, or to donate, contact Dean Young at 484-239-2075 or e-mail gabriel5@rcn.com
