For some youth when asked where food comes from, many will say the grocery store.
Elisabeth McNiel and Elizabeth Snipes want to change this perception through community gardening.
Two raised garden beds have tomatoes, herbs, watermelons, cucumbers, squash, beans and marigolds.
Snipes, the Marlboro/Dillon 4-H agent said some kids take for granted that the apples are at the grocery store.
“They don’t get to see the start to finish,” she said.
With the gardens at the park, she hopes you will see beans that started as seeds come to fruition.
“To be able to see the change in that will be beneficial to them,” she said.
The project started with McNiel, director of Tourism, Parks, and Recreation for the City of Bennettsville, who applied for a Eat Smart, Move More, Let’s Go 3.0 grant.
It was to build raised garden beds to serve a community that is in a food desert. Once she received the grant, supplies were bought with an employee building the beds.
McNiel reached out to Snipes to see if the 4-H wanted to participate.
“It is a project that my 4-Hers could use as a service project,” she said.
Once Clemson Extension allows in person programming, Snipes wanted to have the youth tend to the gardens.
McNiel has a goal of having more garden beds. Rural Area Leadership Initiative-Dillon (RALI-Dillon County) provided the plants.
A master garden student Lucille Huelsman helped with the project. She came out on the first day and helped to break the ground under the base of the garden beds.
Snipes said she knew way more about what to plant, where to plant it, and how many to plant.
Huelsman was the one to draw up the blueprint on what should go where.
“It was another mutual benefit project,” Snipes said. “She needed master gardener community service hours and we needed her input. She came out that day to help us when we put the soil in and planted everything.”
Other assistance came from the water department who installed a spigot so the gardens could have access to running water. Mulch stored at the park was used to keep weeds away and for long care maintenance.
The beds are fully accessible to the public with seats so someone can sit while tending to the garden.
And there are open spaces where a wheelchair could pull up so folks of all abilities can have access.
“These are truly community beds for the community to enjoy, help maintain, and reap the benefits,” McNiel said.
Once the garden starts producing, the community will be able to partake of the vegetables grown but also to help to maintain the garden.
Snipes said the long-term goal is to have community buy in.
“We know this is the only way it will be sustainable,” she said. “If they are invested in this, we can take a step back and they can come in and treat it as theirs.”
If someone would like to help maintain the gardens, all they have to do is go to Smith Park.
Snipes said part of the grant was the project had to be educational.
Snipes has done some virtual lessons on seeds.
Huelsman is willing to come back to speak when they can have a small group of youth.
“If the kids are invested and interested, I think it will be successful,” Snipes said.
For more information about the gardens, call 843-479-6851 or 843-479-3941.