School Life
Pelion Community Garden
Pelion Community Garden
We are transforming four (4) vacant city lots located across the street from our school (Click here to see the 'before picture'!) into a City Honors Community Garden. Our Garden will engage our students with the natural world and enrich their curriculum, and it will also beautify and help us connect with our neighborhood on the East Side of Buffalo. We will be creating hands-on learning opportunities for students to learn about plants, food, science, and sustainable agriculture. Neighborhood cleanups and programs to teach both community members and students to grow, prepare and enjoy healthy foods will be incorporated.
The Name
The name "Pelion Community Garden at City Honors School" was selected by the 5th and 6th graders at City Honors School. In Greek mythology, Mount Pelion was the homeland of Chiron the Centaur, tutor of many ancient Greek heroes and is the beloved mascot of City Honors School.
Our Neighborhood and Our City
The City of Buffalo has the third highest vacant housing rate in the nation. Vacant properties attract crime and deter community reinvestment. Reclaiming these properties should be a priority in any shrinking Rust Belt city. One valuable strategy to maximize Buffalo's blighted, vacant lots is to designate them as Community Gardens. The City Honors School is taking on this challenge and converting 4 vacant lots into a unique school/community garden.
Why a Community Garden?
Community Gardens are right for Buffalo and our neighborhood for a number of reasons:
- Community gardens will bring green space back to urban areas and enhance the neighborhood with greenery, flowers and seasonal color.
- Gardens can bolster community pride by encouraging socialization and unity in declining neighborhoods.
- Gardens reconnect students and community members with the outdoors and engage them with the natural world by educating youth about plants, soils, and other elements of nature.
- Through the use of sustainable practices such as rain gardens and stormwater reuse, community gardens can reduce flows into our City's combined storm and sanitary sewer networks.
Frederick Law Olmsted, the landscape architect and designer of Buffalo's legacy parks and parkways, believed that introducing nature into cities would address the social and physical issues typical of the urban core. In this sense, the proposed Pelion Community Garden continues Olmsted's tradition of democratically distributed parks and natural areas throughout our city.
The Garden
The Pelion Community Garden will offer four distinct plant zones. A Wellness Garden will highlight herbs and other plants traditionally used for medicinal purposes. A Habitat Garden will feature plants that provide food or cover for wildlife and will include a butterfly garden. A Food & Nutrition Garden will grow mostly edibles and will be proximate to the larger teaching garden plots. Finally, an Indigenous Garden will include plants used by Native Americans for food, building materials, and other daily needs.
Beyond the four styled plant areas, the Pelion Community Garden also will include functional areas. The Teaching Garden Plots will be used to grow food and herbs for consumption and education. A Lawn Area provides a place for play and to host larger gatherings. The lawn will be comprised of hardy seed types with limited watering and mowing needs. A Rain Garden will sustain plants tolerant of moist soils, encourage infiltration, and reduce flows into the local storm drainage system. A Composting and Materials Storage Area will utilize permeable pavement and provide room for seasonal materials staging. Rain Barrels and Catchment Tarps will capture and store rainwater for future reuse on site. In all, the Pelion Community Garden will teach students and local residents about the value of sustainable practices.
Click here to see diagrams of the zones, areas and strategic plan for the project!
Donate
We are accepting donations to help make our garden a reality. Donations can be made in two ways:
- BY CHECK c/o CH/FMP Foundation, 186 E. North Street, Buffalo, NY 14202
- ONLINE using the button below
Pelion Community Garden Information & Donation Flyer
Contact
For more information on the garden or to learn how you can assist, please email: peliongarden@gmail.com
