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right Stella D’Oro lilies dot the black wrought-iron fence that surrounds a garden lush with vegetables and flowers, all neatly planted in rows of raised beds. The image appears to be a homey backyard. But pull back with the camera and you’ll see that this beautiful parcel is surrounded by brick, concrete and pavement.

Healthy Haven Garden, located at ı20 Oak St., near downtown Binghamton, is much more than just a garden. It’s an example of what can happen when local government, businesses, neighbors, high school students and Binghamton University collaborate. And its offerings go beyond the flowers and vegetables.

A safe haven
Three days a week, Binghamton High School students can cross the street to Trinity Memorial Episcopal Church to attend the Haven After School Program. There they can play basketball, pool and games, do arts and crafts, use the computer or just relax in the lounge.

Started by the church in 2003, but now a distinct entity funded by various sources, Haven’s goal has always been to provide a safe and nurturing environment where teens can get the support and skills they need to live a healthy and successful life.

The free program has about 30 students who are regulars, and another 28 who are occasional drop-ins. The only requirement is parental permission.

“As an after-school program, you try to get them to focus on academics,” says Ladene Bourne, director of Haven. “But they’ve been in classes since 7:30 that morning and they just want to wind down.”

So Bourne pioneered the Haven garden project as a way to teach the teens about healthy living, healthy eating and community involvement.

Community connections

The Binghamton City School District comprises seven elementary schools, two middle schools, but only one high school. “[Students] get on buses and disperse to all parts of the city,” says Ladene Bourne, director of the Haven After School Program. “Some go to the South Side, some
to the West Side, some east and some north.” Haven gives students a place to spend time with friends they would be unlikely to see outside of school.

Just a couple of years ago, the Healthy Haven garden was a vacant lot, a dumping ground for passersby.

“We’d been dreaming about this garden for several years,” Bourne says. But it wasn’t until January of 2008 that things started falling into place. “We started writing grants, and the neighborhood assembly was very supportive — not only because we’d be keeping the kids off the streets, but because we’d be beautifying the community.”

People and groups started stepping forward to help. Kimberly Jaussi, associate professor of organizational behavior, and her strategic planning class in the Binghamton University School of Management helped Haven develop a strategic business plan. The church put up a fence. The city contributed the cedar to build the raised beds and the soil to fill them. And the local Agway store and Broome County landfill supplied compost. A slew of volunteers from the church and community — including Volunteers Improving Neighborhood Environments (VINES) — donated seeds and installed the raised beds.

Haven teens took over from there, filling the beds and doing the planting. They continued working in the garden until the growing season and the school year diverged. During the summer, volunteers from Mothers & Babies Perinatal Network and the Haven basketball program tended it.

“The garden is built for the long term,” says Susan Sherwood, administrative director of Haven. The fence is heavy wrought iron. And the cedar for the two flowerbeds and ı0 raised vegetable beds was brought in from Indiana to make sure it would last.

The 2008 harvest included bushels of tomatoes, peppers, squash, zucchini, watermelon, basil, mint, carrots, radishes and lettuce. The Haven students were asked how they wanted to use the fruits of their labor: eat them or sell them?

“They came up with a completely different answer,” Sherwood says. “They wanted to give them back to the church.” So they made soup and served it at the weekly Friends Dinner held at Trinity for people infected with or affected by HIV/AIDS. They also donated vegetables and fruits to the Sunday lunchtime Canteen Program that provides hot meals for 60 to 80 low-income people each week. Vegetables also were integrated into after-school snacks and even shared with Oak Street neighbors.

The garden already had taught the Haven students much about collaboration and community. But that fall, the University found new ways to reap lessons from it.


Bridging the gap
For some time, Masha Britten, associate professor of nursing and board member of Haven, had been looking for a way to connect Binghamton and Haven. “Two years ago, Masha came to me wanting health promotion for the kids,” says Judy Quaranta ’79, MS ’98, clinical associate professor of nursing. Initially they tried health fairs, but saw weak turnout.

The garden offered a new learning medium, though, and Quaranta’s Introduction to Community Health Nursing class was the perfect channel. With a $2,500 grant from the Stephen David Ross University and Community Projects Fund, they had the money to move forward.

In October 2008, students from Quaranta’s class visited Haven. They delivered four half-hour interactive sessions on topics such as healthy eating, food choices, and personal and auto safety. They even shared a meal made, in part, with food from the garden. Funds from the Ross grant enabled them to purchase supplies, materials and utensils to get their concepts across.

Quaranta found the Haven students to be very receptive. “They seemed to appreciate the time and effort that went into the presentations,” she says. “They were knowledgeable, and where they had misconceptions, they hopefully got turned around.”

Pleased with how the seminars played out, Quaranta has built others with various topics into her curriculum.

Another season has passed, and it’s remarkable to see what’s developed from the Healthy Haven Garden project. “You wouldn’t believe how ugly this vacant lot was,” Sherwood says. “And now all we hear from people in the community is how pleased they are with the change.”