Surgance Central

LifeRoots Community Garden Presses Forward

With the quick approach of spring, excitement is continuing to build for LifeRoots Community Garden and all that this project will entail.  Winter is waning in Colorado, and the vision of flowery buds of new growth are inspiring the efforts of LifeRoots' assembled team.  Compost bins have been built.  Clear lines of demarcation lay out the exact spots of future garden plots.  Donated materials are continuing to be placed within the garden perimeters indicating to the community at large that something is occurring on the property.  Interest is continuing to ignite among various individuals, community groups, businesses, and organizations.

 This is the property on which LifeRoots Community Garden will eventually sit.  This view is looking towards the west, centering on Pike's Peak, taken from the center of the proposed garden spot.

This is another view of the existing property...this view is looking east, towards Union Blvd, one of the busiest north-south corridors in the city.  The garden will sit about 100 yards from this street.

Yesterday, April 21st, marked a day of great anticipation for the LifeRoots team.  It was on this Tuesday that a meeting was scheduled between LifeRoots Community Garden and Colorado Springs Utilities.   This appointment was highly anticipated not only for the monumental nature of the meeting (this was the first meeting with an outside entity where LifeRoots, as a Surgance brand, would be discussed and presented); part of the anticipation was due to the complete validity that an organization like Colorado Springs Utility could lend LifeRoots Community Garden in all future partnership gathering endeavors.  As Al Barrera, Garden Director, and John Wheeler, Garden Architectual Consultant, walked into the room, each one realized how important it would be to truly cast the vision for all that this garden could be.

As Al began to walk through the concept of LifeRoots Community Garden, he began to see changes in the faces of the three representatives of Colorado Springs Utilities.  With each passing moment, the city utilities representatives' body language changed from skeptical to apprehensive to interested and finally to involved and excited.  The most obvious interest was displayed as he showed the group a finalized artist rendition of the future property (designed and created by team members John and Jeff Haley, Landscape Architect)

 

As the group scanned over the garden's design, words like "beautiful", "ambitious", and "exciting" were emphatically mentioned.  As the remaining time was spent in an informal question and answer session, recommendations were made by CS Utilities regarding water issues, advertising, partnerships, energy consulting, and the amount of involvement foreseen by CS Utilities.  Steps were agreed to, by those representatives involved, to help LifeRoots in its pursuit of further Utilities' involvement.  Suggestions were made regarding water rights contacts, grant proposals, and volunteer mobilization.  As the meeting came to a conclusion, hand shakes and smiles filled the room in anticipation of seeing this project come to fruition.

We do not know what will come of this meeting.  We do know that as we walked out of the room another critical set of connections were made.  LifeRoots Community Garden has always emphasized the vision of facilitating the increase of connections within the Pike's Peak Region.  If the meeting with Colorado Springs Utilities was any indication of the garden's ability to connect, then LifeRoots is well on its way to seeing the vision of a connected community come to pass.

If you would like to make a contribution to enable Surgance to continue to lead community transforming projects like this all around the world, we would greatly appreciate your tax-deductible donation of any size through Network for Good:

Community Garden Taking Shape in Colorado Springs

LifeRoots Community Gardens: this is the name of the Pike's Peak Region's newest community garden project.  As the name LifeRoots crosses the mind, ideas of sustainability, organic growth, and true community involvement are conjoured up.  Imagery of  life truly lived together, and the depth of that involvement at the most intimate of levels, flood the mind causing one to dream of how this could happen in the context of a garden benefiting an entire region. Excitement seems to be exponentially growing within the area as the project continues to unfold.  Various members of this diverse region have assembled and are diligently working together to see this sustainable oasis grow and blossom.  These are some of the key team members:  Jeff Lackey, liason to Heart of the Springs Church and organic gardener; Jeff Haley, the landscape architect who first envisioned and put to paper the dream of what this garden could look like; Robert Jacobsen, Junior at nearby Colorado College, geology major, and student organizer at the campus level; and John Wheeler, the wisdom behind the layout and design of the garden, architect and project construction manager.  This team, with its communal knowledge, is a representation of what can happen when the community comes together to accomplish dreams and goals.

As individuals have begun to approach this team and ask, "Why are you doing this project?", the answer is always very simple:  to see the city of Colorado Springs made even better by this garden's existence.  That is the vision behind the project: to see Colorado Springs improved by people working together; to beautify the land, grow vegetables, and talk together; to live life, if only for a few minutes a day, as if we all had something valuable to contribute.  The simple truth is that we all have something to add, as this team has already demonstrated.  The community of Colorado Springs is far more valuable together than we ever could be living in isolation.  We exist to encourage one another, to spur each other on to really good work, and to live in a selfless manner.  It is so exciting to think that this garden could stand as a representation of that ideal in action.  The future is indeed growing bright as the seeds of LifeRoots Community Garden begin to grow.