
DATE: Saturday, March 22, 1997              TAG: 9703220617

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B1   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY KAREN JOLLY DAVIS, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: CAPE CHARLES                      LENGTH:   75 lines

RESIDENTS PLANT SEED OF HOPE THE CAPE CHARLES GARDEN IS MEANT TO HELP FEED NEEDY.

Trash and overgrown weeds lay exposed on a lot in the rotting end of town. There, college students on spring break worked beside members of Concerned Citizens of Cape Charles to dig a vegetable garden.

People in this neighborhood fear they won't have enough money to buy food as welfare benefits begin to evaporate under federal reforms.

``This garden will help when there's nothing to put on the table,'' said resident Diane Williams. Jobs are scarce, she said, and rents are rising for degenerating rental property.

But as 23 students from Indiana University and Plattsburg State College in New York pulled trash from the empty lot and stripped away its weeds, they were discouraged by the response of some of the young people from the neighborhood who stood around watching or sat in lawn chairs. Some tossed bottles into the weeds.

``The older people have more hope than the younger people because they know the way it was,'' said Plattsburg State student Keri-rae Richardson.

The students decided to call this project the Garden of Hope.

``Maybe if they see the vegetables grow, the community will grow, and they will grow themselves,'' Plattsburg State's Katie Boulay said of the town's young people. ``I think they have to understand that they make their own community.''

Marian Ames and the people with Concerned Citizens of Cape Charles agreed. The garden project was one of seven that group members organized to improve their neighborhood.

Last year, they plugged into the Alternative Spring Break Program through a group called Volunteers for Communities. This year, a total of 61 students from Boston College, Holy Cross, Indiana University and Plattsburg State came to Cape Charles to help the citizens group.

``We chose to come here after reading a description of Concerned Citizens of Cape Charles,'' said Kristina Strinka, site leader from IU. ``We were impressed that it was a group of people who wanted to get together and help themselves.''

The students ate and slept at the First Baptist Church annex. They were only allowed to bring one bag on the trip, so most wore the same clothes day after day. When given a choice about the day's schedule, many voted to take a shower rather than eat.

They liked the people of Cape Charles, particularly the small children.

Over the course of two weeks, the volunteers painted several houses and a church, replaced a rotted roof on a building slated to become a community center, and dug the Garden of Hope.

``This is a catalyst for people going back to the old ways, a community helping one another,'' said resident Margaret Kellam.

The plot was planted with beets, string beans, butter beans, tomatoes, greens, cucumbers and squash, as well as flowers and shrubs.

Three landowners, including Doris Horton, donated the use of their property for the group garden. Food grown there will be free to whoever harvests it, but the citizens' group expects people in the neighborhood to keep it weeded and watered.

Townspeople like Kellam are confident that local youths will eventually keep an interest in the garden.

``This is what community is all about,'' Kellam said. She had nothing but praise and gratitude for what the college students had accomplished.

``Maybe they'll show some of these guys that are standing around how it's supposed to be done,'' she said. ILLUSTRATION: CULTIVATING A COMMUNITY

[Color Photo]

TAMARA VONINSKI/The Virginian-Pilot

Exmore resident Ladebra Ross, left, and Indiana University student

John While work on a vegetable garden in Cape Charles.

TAMARA VONINSKI/The Virginian-Pilot

Cape Charles residents Margaret Kellam, left, and Diane Williams

walk through the Garden of Hope, planted to aid people coming off of

welfare. Community members were joined in their efforts by college

volunteers.