When they arrived in the park, they ‘jumped’ right in and began working. They are staying in the community with Macileen Jordan, Friends of Dean Park, Inc.’s secretary. Their work was highly appreciated by Friends of Dean Park, Inc. (FODP) Nancy Eichelberger of Women in the NAACP WIN is in the background volunteering also. Dean Park Commissioner and WIN president Carolyn Hampton and her mother Ida Mae Rash helped with overseeing planting the garden. There were ten members of FODP present.Black Girls Read (BGR), a project of The Malachi Project Youth Mentoring Program, has become regular volunteers at the park with their director Dr. Melissa Davis. The Dean Park Garden Kids Club was present also. They include the Moncriefs and McWilliams. A few of the regular youth were taking the ACT and could not be present. All of these youth will surely have all of their community services hours for scholarships and college.
They finished cleaning the garden beds, fertilized, limed them and planted vegetables which included: broccoli, cauliflower, kale and collards. The lettuce, mustards and turnips planted by them earlier in August are growing and looking healthy. They were happy to be interviewed and filmed for WCBI News which was shown that evening. FODP sponsors Beautification Days quarterly with the next one to be held, Saturday, January 2018.
