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Page 1 of 1 I Larry Leiendecker, J.D. From: "Kimberley Spear" <kimberleyspear52@comcast.net> Date: Sunday, April 18, 2010 730 PM To: "'Larry Leiendecker, J.D."' <larrylesq@comcast.net> Cc: 'jymhubbell" <jymhubbell@msn.com>; "David Maghakian" <davidm@northcomochurch.org>; "Sue Rickers" <rick0053@umn.edu>; "Gavin Watt" <gdw@umn.edu> Subiect: About Plantinq Seeds of Hope communiN qarden Hi Larry, Happy Sunday. I write to respond to your email more fully today. I have copied a couple church members, Pastor David Maghakian (PD) and Jym Hubbell, co-cordinator Sue Rickers, and long time gardener, rose lover, and church member Gavin Watt. The purpose of this email is to --provide background and context for the courtesy visit where Sue Rickers and I visited you at home, when later Gavin Watt joined us --respond to your concems --invite you to participate on the presently forming operational garden group Thank you for your patience while you waited for this epistle. Sorry in advance for the length. Background and Context - the internal conversation In 2009-2010 North Como Presbyterian Church (NCPC) concluded its conversation about its renewal. This renewal included cultivating renewed hope and faith in the congregation, the pastor, and our outreach activities. We applied for and were awarded a grant from the Lilly Endowment Inc. to primarily support a sabbatical for our pastor, to renew hope within the congregation through a variety of activities, and a small part of the grant was seed money to develop a community garden, a summer ministry to grow food for the food shelves, and the families of congregants, neighbors and community members who receive plots. NCPC members involved with the renewal activities invited other members of the church to step into roles of leadership for the community garden: Sue Rickers and I agreed that together we could lead the planning group. In the fall 2009 the planning group began its work. It has been a small group with evolving membership with a slow and steady pace of activity. The group reflected the church population in general, a few members doing the work, a few more members with lots of advice and no time to work. Early in the planning process, the need for a communication plan was identified with congreagation and community components. A member to take this on was not found. The plan was therefore done more slowly and sporadically than was ideal. The group toured community gardens last year, and we attended gardening conferences and presentations for our education. We decided that indeed we could do the community garden. We adopted the Twin Cities Community Garden Start-Up Guide available on the GardeningMatters.org website as the guide to our organization, agreements, worksheets, etc. At this time we approached District 10 in St. Paul, the City of Roseville and Falcon Heights to learn what they were doing related to community gardens. We talked to the City of Roseville about requirements that are necessary for a community garden on the church property. Verbally we received advice about the garden and curb cuts; no problems were identified at that time. At the same time we surveyed the congregation to ask whether they were interested in a community garden, if they wanted a plot, did they object to the garden. Those responding were supportive of having a garden, and a group of 8 plots were designated for church uses - for members, for the pre-school, for the food shelves. Ne�ct we had a landscape architect draft an overall plan for the community garden, revised it in several ways, and decided that a phased approach to the garden was important - do a small garden successfully and grow the effort when and if the time is right. We talked about engaging the community, both potential gardeners and neighbors of the church. We --• �-•, 4/19/2010