Feeding body, mind, and spirit – ATSU’s Community Garden Club
Posted: April 24, 2023
Since 2018, two small plots of land near A.T. Still University’s Thompson Campus Center (TCC) have been blossoming – both literally and figuratively.
These two plots of land serve as the Kirksville campus’s eight-bed community garden, where the ATSU Community Garden Club comes together to strengthen their gardening skills, serve the community, and find balance in their lives as medical students.
“In the aspect of body, mind, and spirit, gardening is very much aligned,” said club member and future co-president Haley Schuster, OMS I. “Getting outside and growing something and being able to produce something that you can actually physically eat just really feeds your soul. Garden Club makes you take a step away from school and take a pause…If you’re having a rough day, just getting outside and seeing the other club members in the garden is so uplifting.”
The Community Garden Club is one of ATSU’s many registered student organizations, and serves as a place for students to come together to promote health and wellness through maintenance of the garden and the harvesting of freshly grown flowers, herbs, fruits, and vegetables.
Each week during the warmer months, club members sign up for shifts to get together to weed, water, and harvest the garden’s produce, all while getting to catch up with their classmates. For many members of the club, being able to take a step back from their studies, even if only for a few hours, has had an immense positive impact on their mental health.
“We’ll be weeding, we’ll be harvesting, we’ll be popping a couple of tomatoes in our mouths or something, and asking about the weekend and hearing how things are going. Being a student, it’s just so wonderful being able to take some time away from sitting down staring at a computer screen or iPad or textbook,” said Alec Staiger, OMS II, this year’s club president.
“I think that implementing different methods to get outdoors and really take care of your emotional health, spiritual health, is just as important as taking care of physical health,” he added.
In addition to weekly garden maintenance, the club attends local health fairs to talk about the benefits of gardening. At a recent health fair, club members gave attendees a cup which they could decorate with stickers, along with a marigold seed, and provided instructions on how to plant and care for the seed.
The club also hosts cooking activities and organizes volunteer outings in the community throughout the year. This year, the club began cleaning the yards of elderly individuals and individuals with disabilities who were unable to do so themselves.
“We can use our energy that we have. We’re young and we’re excited, and so let’s rake people’s yards. We got a bunch of people together, and the TCC here had a bunch of rakes for us, and so we got some garbage bags and went throughout the town. We were able to help clean a bunch of different yards, and that was really cool and really satisfying,” Staiger said.
The club hopes to continue serving the Kirksville community, and is looking forward to seeing how the group continues to grow each year, while also helping to advance the University’s commitment to community health.
For first-year ATSU-Kirksville College of Osteopathic Medicine (ATSU-KCOM) student Madeline LaRow, OMS I, that the University had a community garden on campus had a huge impact on her decision to attend, and she is thankful for the knowledge gained and friendships made since joining the club.
“I’ve always loved gardening,” said LaRow, who is also one of the club’s future co-presidents. “I took a lot of classes in undergrad because I really like health and nutrition, and I thought maybe it would be something I’d want to do. Someday I would like to incorporate community gardens and teaching people how to grow their own food and that community-health aspect into my life. As a doctor, I think I can have more insight into better nutrition and things.”
“I’ve learned so much more about people in my class, and in the second year class, in the Garden Club than really anywhere else. I think when we’re on campus in the classroom, we tend to stick to conversations that are like, ‘How was your weekend? How was studying?’ I think having the Garden Club has really helped me get back to having normal conversations with other people, because it gets hard to do that,” she added.
With the month of May quickly approaching, the club is getting ready to begin planting some of the seedlings they’ve been sprouting during the winter months, and members are excited to start harvesting all the fresh snap peas, cucumbers, tomatoes, and more that will be grown this summer.
“There’s just so many benefits of gardening that I think it’s really cool we have this opportunity here to enhance our gardening skills and collaborate with each other. I feel like each member has something they’ve tried that’s worked for them, and it’s a great way to learn from each other and create a beautiful space on campus,” Schuster said.
For more information on joining ATSU’s Community Garden Club, visit the organization’s Engage profile here.
