Harvest of thanks

By Deb Silverthorn

Seed by seed, row by row — for the past seven years, members of Temple Emanu-El have nurtured and watched the Jill Stone Community Garden grow. This year alone, the gardeners have harvested and donated nearly 5,000 pounds of fresh produce in partnership with the Dallas County Master Gardeners of the Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service, International Rescue Committee and North Texas Food Bank.

“Gardening is something we’re excited to continue, even with hand sanitizer on the shopping lists,” said Kay McInnis, the garden manager and one of 11 garden team leaders, noting that volunteers follow COVID-19 safe distance procedures including wearing masks and gloves and staying 6 feet apart. “Working in the garden requires only time and heart, and there’s lots of that making our harvesting possible.”

The Vickery Meadow Food Pantry, beneficiary of the garden’s crops, provides supplemental food to low-income, largely refugee and immigrant families living in the Vickery Meadow neighborhood, just 3 miles from Temple Emanu-El.

The garden began in 2012, with a harvest of 80 pounds, on a corner of land on the northeast side of the temple’s campus. In 2015, the family of Jill Stone of blessed memory dedicated the garden and its first expansion in her name. 

Stone participated in many Vickery Meadow activities, serving on the boards of the Vickery Community Action Team and the Vickery Meadow Learning Center (now Literacy Achieves), teaching children at the elementary school and tutoring adults in English as a Second Language at the Learning Center. After her death, the elementary school was renamed Jill Stone Elementary School at Vickery Meadow.

Stone participated in many Vickery Meadow activities, serving on the boards of the Vickery Community Action Team and the Vickery Meadow Learning Center (now Literacy Achieves), teaching children at the elementary school and tutoring adults in English as a Second Language at the Learning Center. After her death, the elementary school was renamed Jill Stone Elementary School at Vickery Meadow.

“Jill was a ‘hands-on, let’s do it’ person and that’s why we named the garden in her memory,” said Dr. Marvin Stone, who was married to Jill Stone for 46 years. “We felt she’d be enthusiastic about the growing, and giving, of food for those in need in ‘her’ neighborhood. Indeed, Jill’s garden flourishes.”

The garden added 9,800 square feet in 2019 with a gift by the children of Ruthie (of blessed memory) and Harold Kleinman in honor of the couple’s 60th wedding anniversary. Since the expansion, the amount of produce harvested, and donated, has nearly tripled.

“Ruthie always thought it was a mitzvah to feed the hungry, but also appreciated the mitzvah of providing the food. The garden allows our Temple family to do that,” said Harold Kleinman. “Our kids gave their gift in our honor, respecting the social justice tenet that provided for the expansion of the garden.”

Twenty-six volunteers regularly tend the garden, including master gardeners and hobbyists. In non-pandemic times religious-school students join in. The littlest gardeners — early childhood students — regularly participate in a farm-to-table curriculum that explores where food comes from. 

“You have to feel good working in the dirt, knowing everything we do makes a huge difference for many,” said McInnis. “It’s fulfilling to every one of us.”

Most of the garden’s plants begin in seed trays in a greenhouse that is part of the garden. After two to three weeks, seedlings are moved under lights until they are ready to be transplanted into the ground. Eggplants, sweet peppers, radishes, okra, kale, fava beans, beets, spinach and cucumbers are part of this season’s yield.

The garden’s crops have been enhanced by the guidance of Gardeners in Community Development members Don and Tiah Lambert. Members of Dallas’ immigrant community, the couple have shared with the team suggestions of long beans, bitter and snake melons and more, that many of the refugees living in the Vickery Meadow community are accustomed to growing and eating. 

“The garden has grown out of people’s desires to share in the mitzvah of tikkun olam, caring for our earth and expanding to the feeding of those in need,” said Rabbi Debra Robbins of Temple Emanu-El. “The gifts that were shared, which have allowed the garden’s success, have served such incredible purpose, a purpose that continues to grow month after month, year after year.”

Volunteers of all ages and experience levels are welcome (children accompanied by adults) on Sundays from 9 a.m. to noon and Wednesdays from 8 to 11 a.m. Due to social distance requirements, it is requested that interested participants email kay.mcinnis@att.com in advance.