Members of Spring Creek Road Baptist Church worked shoulder to shoulder with people from across the city on Saturday building beds and planting vegetables in its new community garden.

Shari Stone, who heads up the church’s Children’s Ministry, said she got the idea of reaching out to the community via a vegetable garden from a video she saw on the Internet about urban gardens.

“What we are really trying to do is be the church outside of the church,” Stone said as she helped kids inside the gym piece together reflectors to keep critters from getting at the tender plants. “The garden will make the church more relevant to the community.”

Outside the venerable church, in what once was an expansive lawn shaded by a giant oak tree, people were building 12-foot by 4-foot frames to house the “Black Gold” soil for raised beds. Matt Branum and Joe Holland were lugging the frames into place where Stan Dickert would use a front-end loader to dump the soil.

Larry Stone said the Lafayette Co-Op, Lafayette Middle School and the Melon Patch donated truckloads of plants which hopefully will bare vegetables this summer.

“We’ve got just about everything,” said Stone. “We’ve got 200 tomato plants, 50 squash plants and 50 pepper plants.

Stone said aside from the 150 raised beds which will be planted, The Garden of Life will have 40 rows on the north side planted in corn, green beans, okra, string beans, cucumbers, and Lima beans.

Donna Day was roaming around, seemingly supervising several parts of the operation at once. Day explained that the church has reached out and ministered to children in some of the city’s extended stay motels. “We encourage them to come to the garden,” she said. “We are going to give away the vegetables.”

Church officials said the Garden of Life is a way to reach out to the community and help grow the church. The idea is to get people to the garden and then invite them into the church.

Plans are taking place to perhaps offer cooking classes to those who reap the rewards of the garden. Shari Stone said, “everyone loves vegetables. We are going to serve everyone.”

Stone said it’s expensive to eat fresh vegetables. The Garden of Life vegetables will help nourish children from lower income families.

“Everybody has a place in the garden,” Stone said. “This is not one person’s garden. We hope to improve the life of the community.

“We all do life together,” she added. “Everybody’s life is different, but we all have the same struggles.”

While working in the gym with the children, Stone’s thoughts turned to East Ridge in general.

Members of Spring Creek Road Baptist Church worked shoulder to shoulder with people from across the city on Saturday building beds and planting vegetables in its new community garden.

Shari Stone, who heads up the church’s Children’s Ministry, said she got the idea of reaching out to the community via a vegetable garden from a video she saw on the Internet about urban gardens.

“What we are really trying to do is be the church outside of the church,” Stone said as she helped kids inside the gym piece together reflectors to keep critters from getting at the tender plants. “The garden will make the church more relevant to the community.”

Outside the venerable church, in what once was an expansive lawn shaded by a giant oak tree, people were building 12-foot by 4-foot frames to house the “Black Gold” soil for raised beds. Matt Branum and Joe Holland were lugging the frames into place where Stan Dickert would use a front-end loader to dump the soil.

Larry Stone said the Lafayette Co-Op, Lafayette Middle School and the Melon Patch donated truckloads of plants which hopefully will bare vegetables this summer.

“We’ve got just about everything,” said Stone. “We’ve got 200 tomato plants, 50 squash plants and 50 pepper plants.

Stone said aside from the 150 raised beds which will be planted, The Garden of Life will have 40 rows on the north side planted in corn, green beans, okra, string beans, cucumbers, and Lima beans.

Donna Day was roaming around, seemingly supervising several parts of the operation at once. Day explained that the church has reached out and ministered to children in some of the city’s extended stay motels. “We encourage them to come to the garden,” she said. “We are going to give away the vegetables.”

Church officials said the Garden of Life is a way to reach out to the community and help grow the church. The idea is to get people to the garden and then invite them into the church.

Plans are taking place to perhaps offer cooking classes to those who reap the rewards of the garden. Shari Stone said, “everyone loves vegetables. We are going to serve everyone.”

Stone said it’s expensive to eat fresh vegetables. The Garden of Life vegetables will help nourish children from lower income families.

“Everybody has a place in the garden,” Stone said. “This is not one person’s garden. We hope to improve the life of the community.

“We all do life together,” she added. “Everybody’s life is different, but we all have the same struggles.”

While working in the gym with the children, Stone’s thoughts turned to East Ridge in general.