DJJ Community Garden gets a lift from FPL volunteers

Palm Coast Observer
Neighbors

What was expected to take a year ended up taking just four hours.

Thanks to the coordination of Shatelle Britt, a service project at the Community Garden of Flagler County’s Department of Juvenile Justice found just the right volunteers in Florida Power & Light Co., on March 5, as part of FPL’s Power to Care Week.

One of 30 projects involving 1,500 volunteers around the state that week, this one involved rebuilding 10 smaller garden boxes (10-by-10 feet) into four larger ones (4-by-70 feet), a major effort.

According to a press release, the Community Garden has been in operation for nearly six years and donates close to 1,000 pounds of fresh vegetables and citrus to local food pantries. The Community Garden’s Advisory Council, and more specifically Flagler Extension Services Master Gardeners Honor O’Reilly and David Tibbetts came up with the plan to convert the boxes.

Cheryl Massaro, the DJJ Community Garden administrator, wrote in a press release that Britt’s efforts, as well as coordination from Vickie Henson and Larry Volenec, made the effort a success. In addition to the boxes, four brand new picnic tables were erected and stained, 10 new verticals were put together and prepared for use, two greenhouses and two storage sheds were cleaned and organized.