If you\u2019re passing by the corner of Patterson Avenue and Martin Luther King Drive in downtown Winston-Salem on a Saturday morning, it\u2019s hard to miss the crowd working inside Goler Community Garden.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Over 30 people gathered in the garden last Saturday, April 30, chatting as they pulled weeds, adjusted watering and heating systems, and harvested and cleaned crops. The fenced-in space was filled with people, with even more out in front of the garden working on a large flower bed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Goler Community Garden is on the property of the Downtown Health Plaza, which is an outpatient clinic of the North Carolina Baptist Hospital. The garden plays an important role in the clinic\u2019s mission to promote \u201ctotal health,\u201d according to its website. \u201cMany of our patients live in food deserts. The garden is an important and accessible resource for fresh vegetables,\u201d said Dr. Carolyn Pedley, who manages the garden and is a primary care provider at the clinic and a professor at Wake Forest University\u2019s medical school.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Wake Forest medical students and members of the Junior League of Winston-Salem come together to plant and harvest a variety of produce each Saturday from 9:00am to 11:00am. The garden consists of nearly 30 raised beds, which are used to grow a variety of fresh produce, varying by season, with completely organic techniques. This spring, the garden is growing collard greens, kale, sweet potatoes, okra, green beans, tomatoes, strawberries, and sunflowers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cVolunteering in the garden has been a great opportunity for Junior League members to better understand food insecurity in our community and do hands-on work,\u201d said Morgan March, the Junior League\u2019s Goler Garden chair. The Junior League has been a partner of the garden since its founding 16 years ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
According to Pedley, if she puts out 50 pounds of produce in the lobby of the clinic on a Monday morning, it is often gone by noon. In 2021, over 2,000 pounds of produce went from the garden straight into patients\u2019 hands. The clinic provides a refrigerator specifically for the produce from the garden. At the end of patients\u2019 visits, they are invited to take individually-bagged produce from a cart in the lobby of the clinic, which is overseen by nurses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Despite the success of produce distribution to patients, the garden has faced setbacks over the past two years between the pandemic and vandalism, Pedley said. Since the beginning of the pandemic in March 2020, volunteering at the garden has not been open to the general public. Once vaccines were widely available, medical students and Junior League members began gathering formally again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A few months ago, the fence of the garden was broken and tools were stolen from the garden shed. With support from the Goler Community Development Corporation and donations, the fence was repaired, tools were replaced, and crops are back in the ground, but the initial vandalism caused a temporary pause in planting and harvesting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The garden was founded in Summer 2009 by the Downtown Health Plaza, the Forsyth County Health Department, and Goler Community Development Corporation, according to Forsyth County\u2019s NC Cooperative Extension.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cOur intention was to gel residents that lived in the area and clients of the Downtown Health Plaza, hoping they would volunteer and connect through the garden,\u201d said Garrett Bolden, CFO of Goler Community Development Corporation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Building community was complicated by COVID-19, but Pedley is optimistic about the future of building the garden\u2019s relationship with patients and beyond.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe pandemic is easing up enough that I\u2019m hopeful about opening up volunteering and returning to some of our pre-pandemic initiatives, like hosting cooking classes in the garden,\u201d she said. \u201cI have a vision of bringing patients out into the garden and ensuring handicapped accessibility \u2013 it\u2019s a goal moving forward.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
If you\u2019re passing by the corner of Patterson Avenue and Martin Luther King Drive in…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":1811,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1813","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-semester-spring21","wpcat-1-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/zerwicp.sites.wfu.edu\/CommunityJournalism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1813","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/zerwicp.sites.wfu.edu\/CommunityJournalism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/zerwicp.sites.wfu.edu\/CommunityJournalism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zerwicp.sites.wfu.edu\/CommunityJournalism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zerwicp.sites.wfu.edu\/CommunityJournalism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1813"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/zerwicp.sites.wfu.edu\/CommunityJournalism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1813\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1817,"href":"https:\/\/zerwicp.sites.wfu.edu\/CommunityJournalism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1813\/revisions\/1817"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zerwicp.sites.wfu.edu\/CommunityJournalism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1811"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/zerwicp.sites.wfu.edu\/CommunityJournalism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1813"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zerwicp.sites.wfu.edu\/CommunityJournalism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1813"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zerwicp.sites.wfu.edu\/CommunityJournalism\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1813"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}