Engaging 107 Youth & Growing Fresh Produce for Chester, PA at the BGCC Community Garden
The Boys & Girls Club of Chester (BGCC) would like to thank the Hardy Plant Society/Mid Atlantic Group for the generous 2026 grant we received. We are happy to report that we achieved all of our goals associated with the project.
Our gardening season started in February with lessons on seeds and seed starting with the children from the after-school program. During the next 2 months, we planted fruit and vegetable seeds into small pots for both cool and warm weather seeds along with a few flowers. When ready, we taught the children how to transplant and care for the seedlings in the garden.
The Boys & Girls Club afterschool program concluded in May with the BGCC six-week summer camp beginning in June. The summer camp children began their gardening experience repeating much of this process with seeding and planting, including hands-on workshops where they dissected seeds and flowers. The children sowed seeds, maintained the plants, and harvested throughout the growing season. Each week, it culminated with cooking a recipe using produce from the garden.
Between the combined programs, we taught 107 different children. We anticipate that we will harvest 1,400 pounds of produce by the end of September, and 1,700 pounds by the end of the growing season in late October. The produce from the BGCC garden provides fresh food for free to the City of Chester.
Growing our own plants from seed, allowed us to grow disease and pest free. It offered many hands-on opportunities for the children to learn about plant science and experience the Seed to Table process.
We serve as a demonstration garden to other community organizations such as Widener University, Chester Eastside Food Cupboard, and Access Center. We were the only community garden on the PA Federation of Garden Club’s tour this summer. Community outreach also included volunteers from the Philadelphia Airport. With the financial support of the Hardy Plant Society, it has been a successful gardening season, full of learning and community involvement.
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