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Community Corner

Community Garden a finalist in national orchard competition

Voting gives Dunwoody residents a chance to support the garden and send vandals a message

Want to show support for the Dunwoody Community Garden and send a message to vandals who last weekend destroyed food destined for families in need?

Here’s your chance.

The Community Garden has been chosen as one of the finalists in the 2012 Edy's Fruit Bars Communities Take Root! contest to win a fruit-tree orchard. This is the third year of the annual competition in which community volunteers, such as the members of the Community Garden, compete against each other to win an orchard.

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There will be 17 winners nationwide who will be selected based on votes by the public. That’s you!

Voting will take place online only at www.CommunitiesTakeRoot.com. It will begin on April 16 and continue until August 30. Information about the program is also available at the website.

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The first five winners will be announced on May 30. Four additional winners will be chosen on each of three other days -- July 2, July 31 and August 30. The rules allow one vote a day per person every day of the contest. So, remember, you can make a big difference by casting a daily vote!

All 17 winners will receive a fruit tree orchard, irrigation system, a groundbreaking party and a supply of Edy’s Fruit Bars to celebrate their new orchard. Also, in order to ensure that every applicant has a starting point to grow an orchard, Edy’s will donate three fruit trees to all participating organizations that do not win an orchard.

Last year, tens of thousands of people voted. Organizers expect even more participation this year.

The garden’s entry in the competition promotional effort to gain community support is being organized by Nicole Maslanka, who also heads the food pantry team that harvests produce for Malachi’s Storehouse.

“One of the reasons we were selected,” she said, “is because of the amount of food we donate to charity.” The City of Dunwoody has also signed off on the addition of the orchard if we are one of the 17 winners, Maslanka said.

“This is very exciting!” Community Garden Board member Angela Minyard said in an email to Community Garden members.  “I have always believed that out of every bad thing comes something good.  There are lots of people in our community that are just finding out we exist and will help us to get our orchard now that they know we are here and are doing good things.”

Among those good things is the food the Community Garden donates to Malachi's Storehouse at Saint Patrick’s Episcopal Church across North Peachtree Road from the garden’s location in Brook Run Park. Last year garden volunteers grew and organized fruit, vegetable and herb donations totaling more than 3,000 pounds.

Malachi's Storehouse serves a diverse population with the largest segment being Hispanic.
“We feed between 100-150 families at 4.5 persons per family,” said Kathy Malcolm Hall, co-director of Malachi’s Storehouse. That’s between 450 and 675 people a week, she added, pointing out that on average 44 percent of the food recipients are children.

“The fresh vegetables that Malachi's provides for the food pantry clients make up a large portion of the produce that these people eat and in a lot of cases is the only fresh produce they get,” Malcolm Hall added. 

Those families also harvest from a garden at the church that Community Garden volunteers installed. Summer planting has just started in these beds.

“We’re focusing on things that grow well here,” said Nancy Armstrong, a garden volunteer who attends Saint Patrick’s. Those things include tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, basil, herbs, sweet potatoes and regular potatoes.

As WXIA Helpdesk reporter Bill Liss said last week in a live report from the Community Garden in Brook Run Park, the people who rely on the food pantry are the people the vandals really hurt. They are, of course, the people who can afford the loss of food the least.

That should be food for thought for those who took part in such a senseless act of destruction last weekend.

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