St. Louis County Library sees the establishment of community gardens as another way of reaching out to and connecting with the local community, as an opportunity to form partnerships with other organizations engaged in building a better St. Louis region, and also as a way to educate people regarding sustainable land use. In our effort to create comfortable spaces for the community to gather, we have oftentimes ignored the green space around our branches and focused only on the spaces inside. One of the library’s new directives is to support the establishment of community gardens at those library branches whose communities and location will support such an endeavor. Working with Gateway Greening provides us with the expertise and guidance we need to make such an initiative a success. Gateway Greening is a local non-profit whose mission is to promote urban neighborhood vitality and stability, healthy living and quality of life through community food projects, education and wellness programs, and civic greening for all ages. This fits easily with St. Louis County Library’s desire to contribute to the health and vitality of the communities we serve while fostering a greater community spirit. The garden at our Prairie Commons Branch was their first collaboration with a public library.

Prairie Commons Branch was chosen as the ideal location for the first garden project since it has a large, sunny, open space in a visible location. For both projects, SLCL and GGI followed the same process for gauging public interest and promoting the concept. The summer prior to our projected installation date, we set an initial meeting at the relevant location to discuss the process, outline the support the library and GGI will bring to the project and gather contact information from participants. Both organizations advertised the meetings by sending out press releases and messages on social media. The library also posted promotional literature and actively promoted the projects at local gardening clubs as well as within each branch. For both projects, SLCL agreed to arrange for soil tests, install water lines and paved paths to increase accessibility while GGI was responsible for providing materials for the raised beds, soil, compost, tools and gardening expertise. The final garden plans of a 20-bed community garden at Prairie Commons and a 24-bed garden at Cliff Cave were a collaborative effort between SLCL, GGI and the community gardeners themselves. The plan for the Prairie Commons garden was in place by early 2013 and, within a five-hour period on Saturday March 23, community gardeners, GGI and SLCL staff and corporate volunteers assembled and set the raised beds and filled them with top soil and compost. St. Louis Audubon Society also partnered with us to install a native plant butterfly garden adjacent to the vegetable plots at Prairie Commons. On March 8, 2014, we followed the same process for the Cliff Cave garden which included four double-height accessibility beds.

In terms of public support and positive media interest, the Prairie Commons garden has been a huge success. Shortly after installation, we had a waiting list of fifteen people who were anxious to secure beds for themselves and, on March 15 2014, we held another installation day and doubled the number of beds available. We hope for the same level of success at the Cliff Cave garden. Pictures of the Prairie Commons ribbon cutting can be seen here.

GGI and SLCL now share a Community Outreach Specialist who has become our main point of contact with the community gardeners and offers support and advice to them. The Community Outreach Specialist also presents programs in the garden that increase exposure to gardening, nutrition and health related topics within the community and help to highlight and further support this project. Our experience with these projects has shown us that partnering with another organization to establish community gardens SLCL is a great way to engage the support of the community while making productive and attractive use of our outside space.