By Kerri Williams

On any given day this summer, several members of the Greens Farms Garden Club could be seen at Prospect Gardens digging in the dirt, building camaraderie and learning about growing vegetables.

In the process, through the club’s Growing for Good program, the club has donated more than 2 ½ tons of organic vegetables in the past six years to St. John’s Mercy Learning Center in Bridgeport and Homes for Hope’s Gillespie Center in Westport. 

That’s no small potatoes. 

“This is the kind of community effort that is so important for the people who need it,” said Cindy Shumate, head landscaper at Prospect Gardens,  who works with members of the club. For some of the recipients, the buckets of beans, squash, fresh greens and tomatoes grown by the group are the only fresh produce they get all season, she added. The group even donates fresh blueberries, raspberries and apples out of the orchard there.

The program started more modestly in 2021 with an idea and two plots – one at St. Timothy’s in Fairfield and another at Wakeman Town Farm in Westport, which the club still uses to grow string beans. 

A big break came in 2022 when the owners of Prospect Gardens in Westport found out about the program and offered the club two vegetable plots there.

“We went over to look at the site and immediately knew it was a match,” said Maybette Waldron, who currently co-chairs the project with Judy Smith. Other Greens Farms leaders include Judy Hlawitschka, head gardener at Prospect Gardens, and Gail Ficken, who heads up the Wakeman operation, along with club president Jacque O’Brien.

Since then, these club members and others have worked hand in hand with the property managers to create a tiered garden that is both beautiful and plentiful for those in need.

Shumate said she has become good friends with many of the club members who problem solve together to learn innovative planting techniques. One new practice they tried this year involved potatoes, planting them vertically in layers instead of in hills.

Judy Smith described another new technique for pruning tomatoes and training them up a single stem that the group also tested out this summer.

“The club members are so willing to experiment,” Shumate said. “But most of all, they are dedicated to the project. They show up every week and work through the heat of the summer.”

Also new to the program this year was getting some young members of the community involved with a “Growing Gardener” program for middle- to high school-age students. 

Malena Tortorella, a senior at Staples, is one of the Growing Gardeners. While Tortorella had some knowledge about flower gardening from her mom, she did not know as much about growing vegetables.

“I learned how to tell when certain vegetables were ripe and when it was appropriate to harvest them, how to identify signs of mites and other plant diseases and how to treat them, about the appropriate tools to use and so much more,” she said. 

But what she enjoyed the most about the program was being part of a close community where she felt appreciated. “People collaborate, work through problems together and celebrate wins together, which makes being there fun,” Tortorella said. “It is really a privilege to be part of such a special and important group of people.”

The program has been recognized nationwide, receiving the Best of the Best award by the National Garden Club at a national convention in 2025. They were also chosen for the National Garden Club webinar that highlighted vegetable projects across the states.

But what’s most important for all those involved is the idea of giving back to those who need it most.

For Shumate, the real meaning of the garden struck home after she decided to grow lavender this year along with the vegetables and fruits. Club members started donating little bunches of the fragrant herb with its purple blossoms to give recipients a little bouquet to put on their table.

“The folks at Mercy Learning Center were thrilled to have something beautiful beyond what they receive to eat,” Shumate said. “It made my heart feel so good that they were getting something beautiful just for them.”

Kerri Williams

^{_{Kerri Williams is an award-winning writer and journalist. She has worked as a reporter at the Norwalk Hour, as Living editor at the Darien News-Review, and managing editor for the Norwalk Citizen-News. For Westport Journal, she is a reporter as well as a gardening columnist, writing ‘Cultivating with Kerri.’ Williams moved from Connecticut to upstate New York in 2021.}}