A Reader’s Perspective

St. John’s Community Garden enters its fourth year of growing vegetables and relationships

By The Rev. John Beach

“If you look the right way, you can see that the whole world is a garden.”

―Frances Hodgson Burnett, “The Secret Garden”

In the spring of 2021, during the height of Covid, St. John’s Church initiated a community garden. All interested persons were invited to help in the cultivating and nurture of vegetables, which would be given to those who are food-insecure in Saugus. It was one of the few opportunities to gather with townspeople in a common task. It also served as a corrective for the crippling loneliness which was one of the tragic side-effects of the pandemic.

Three years later, this garden is still going strong. Its fruitfulness can be observed not merely in the vegetables which are grown, but in the relationships which have been nurtured. We are grateful for the kind and gentle souls from different backgrounds who have contributed to this project.

All are warmly invited to help us during this spring/summer. Several of us will be gathering on Friday and Saturday morning, May 31 and June 1, between 9 and 10:30 a.m. We will be planting seedlings at that time. Volunteers are also welcome to come any Friday or Saturday morning for the rest of the summer to help weed and nurture the crops. If these times are difficult, arrangements can be made for other days.

When we work together as a community, we discover something life-giving and sacred. We are living in a time when anger, fear and contempt fill our ears and assault our eyes every day. It is important to remind ourselves that we can reclaim our humanity by working in the dirt.

  Editor’s Note: The Rev. John Beach has been the priest at St. John’s Episcopal Church since May of 2020. In the spring of 2021, he set out on a mission to transform the yard behind the St. John’s Episcopal Church Rectory into a community garden to help fight food insecurity in Saugus. In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, his second goal was to provide town residents with an opportunity to become a community in an outdoor setting that provides for physical distancing. This summer will mark the fourth growing season for the garden, which continues to grow relationships in the community.