In keeping with the University Unity Project’s new theme of Environmental Sensitivity and Sustainability, Student Council will create a University Community Garden, Council President John Nelson said.
Council’s Environmental Sustainability Committee conceived the idea of the garden in August, committee member Sarah Yates said, adding that the vegetables and plants grown in the garden will be used in environmentally friendly ways.
“We really wanted to promote local sustainable food on Grounds,” she said. “We wanted to have a community that would benefit the broader community by providing food to food banks and to serve as an educational location on gardening and growing food sustainability for elementary schools and the wider Charlottesville community,” she said.
The garden will be located on a plot of land 1,700 square feet in size, near the northwest corner of Alderman and McCormick Roads, diagonally across from Observatory Hill Dining Hall. Nelson noted that the land approved by the University administration for the garden is a prime location because of its proximity to on-Grounds housing, which should encourage more students to help maintain the garden.
He added that students can benefit from Council’s newest project because it “obviously strikes at the core of what environmental sustainability is really about.”
Yates noted that a number of students already have expressed interest in participating in the program.
“We’ve already completed a survey earlier this semester to get student volunteers,” Yates said. “We have at least 200 people interested in volunteering but we’re also going to take our place on Student Council to solicit other members of Council to help through word of mouth and advertisements.”
Nelson also said that although Council will manage the project, it will be up to the student volunteers to maintain the garden.
Yates said her committee has received about $5,000 in funding for the garden, including a $2,500 grant from the University Parents Committee and private donations from parents of students on the Council committee. Council does not yet know, though, exactly when cultivation of the garden will begin.
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