Deacons cultivate Widows' Garden
___PENSACOLA, Fla. (BP)--The sounds of Davis Highway and the hectic pace of the city fade away when one enters two acres of cultivated farmland called the "Widows' Garden."
___Nestled neatly between small orchards of pecan trees outside the walls of Olive Baptist Church in Pensacola, Fla., the garden opened in 1999 under the direction of then-chairman
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RANDY KNEPPER got the idea for a widow's garden from James 1:27.
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of deacons Randy Knepper, who credits God with prompting the idea from James 1:27: "Pure religion and undefiled before God the Father is this--to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction and to keep himself unspotted from the world."
___"Our widows and seniors needed something, and we as deacons needed to take care of them," Knepper said.
___"I contacted Tom Farris, a fellow church member and an agriculture teacher at Ransom Middle School, to help me get started," Knepper recounted. After testing the soil, spreading 600 pounds of fertilizer and breaking the ground, the soil was ready for sowing.
___Sponsored by the deacons of Olive, the Widows' Garden is open to all the church's widows and seniors. Each deacon is assigned a widow and given the responsibility of picking vegetables for her if she is unable to do so herself.
___"What was fun about this was hearing and seeing some of the widows picking (vegetables) themselves and then carrying them to other elderly people," Knepper said.
___Church member Loma West, 83, arrives almost daily to collect from the garden's harvest. West not only picks, but also shells peas before delivering them to at least 20 other "old folks," as she calls her peers.
___The deacons support the garden financially, sometimes calling on donations from Sunday School classes, while volunteers cultivate and then harvest their efforts.
___An irrigation system allows the garden to be bountiful throughout the year. In the summer months, the gardeners tend to a watermelon patch, cantaloupes, squash, tomatoes, cucumbers, okra, peas, butterbeans, peppers, eggplants, zucchini and even peanuts. And in the winter, the garden supplies pecans, collards, turnips, broccoli, cabbage, red potatoes and green onions.
___"The Widows' Garden has made sort of a camaraderie among us," said Jean Rea, who leads a support group for widows at the church. "It makes our widows and seniors feel special," Rea said.
___"One of the interesting things about the garden is not the actual food but the entertainment and memories it brings back. It is good therapy for everyone."
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