Campus Kitchen turns MLK Garden into Community Gathering Spot

On a recent Monday, middle and high school students from a church two hours away sat down to a welcome feast with a Latino community services center and partner to the Campus Kitchen at Wake Forest University.

One week later the group departed, leaving behind some simple, but important improvements. Beyond the compost bin and protective garden fence, the true focus of the service week, a 35 by 45-foot pavilion built to hold 50 people, stood in the El Buen Pastor grounds as a new outdoor classroom and testament to how far a little teamwork can go.

“One of the things we really wanted to do was make the garden more of a community space,” said Shelley Graves, Campus Kitchen coordinator. “We wanted to encourage El Buen Pastor’s members to cook dinner, grill out, do weeding or watering, harvest together, and lay the harvest in the shade to divide up.”

What the group from Grace Haven Baptist Church didn’t expect: the week of service for the El Buen Pastor quickly turned into a week of working alongside them, with skilled construction workers from the community pitching in, in a tag team effort to build the structure.

“They came in expecting to do something for us,” said Mary Bolten, executive director of El Buen Pastor, “They were pleased and surprised that our folks were willing to step up and match their effort.”

This display of teamwork and push for community gathering around food all began with the El Buen Pastor MLK garden tilled this Spring. The garden was funded by a MLK Day Service grant administered through The Campus Kitchens Project and The Corporation for National and Community Service. Funds from the same grant helped provide Grace Haven volunteers with supplies for the earthquake/hurricane-proof pavilion, fence, and bin.

When the work on all three project was completed, Bolten immediately saw the positive effects of the new garden additions.

“Right after the fence was up, people started coming in and staking tomatoes,” she said. “Having the fence there gave it permanence; it made things more tangible.”

Bolten also said the work on the pavilion is almost finished, and soon El Buen Pastor will be able to use the space as an outdoor classroom full-time. Many of the families live in neighboring apartment buildings or mobile home parks, so the garden and pavilion act as their only green space – an excuse to gather around food and have a picnic.

“The relationships formed from gathering around food, that’s what I love about the Campus Kitchen,” said Bolten. “That they recognize those two things go together. I think this project was a great way to pull it all together.”