A Port Arthur community garden is being planned to benefit those with intellectual and developmental disabilities, as well as the community at large.

The garden is a vision of AmeriCorps Volunteers in Service to America, or VISTA, who are working with Spindletop Center.

Catheryn Cole, AmeriCorps VISTA team leader, said the project is in the planning stage and there are a number of things that need to happen to make it a reality.

“We need to bring awareness to the community of what we are planning and of course, funding,” Cole said.

Funding can come in the form of in-kind volunteerism. For example, there is already a one-acre plot of land designated for the garden in the 4600 block of Dryden Road. Gardens need water, hence the need for pipelines to be run.

Pathways are also needed for those with mobility issues so they may easily get to the gardens and the planned raised beds.

“Those are two top priorities and from there, as people come, the gardens will grow,” she said.

Fellow AmeriCorps members Sarah Yashinskie and Shannon McNichols are enthusiastic about the project.

Yashinskie can see clients from the Spindletop Center’s various day programs taking a field trip to the garden to learn how to plant and take care of the produce or items being grown.

Of course, she added, the community would be involved in the garden by renting a row or area.

The goal of the program is to eradicate poverty.

How the garden grows

Yashinskie and McNichols are working on the layout of the gardens.

“It will be gated and have a flower garden on the outside as a give-and-take kind of thing,” Yashinskie said. “People can come and pick flowers. We want to make them feel welcome. They can go in and there will be a parking lot, not super large. We don’t want to take space that could be used for the garden. There will be an orchard somewhere and on the right side, the community plots. People can rent plots and do what they want with the space. There will be a shade structure of some type in the center.”

There is already a basketball court in the middle of the area and there are plans for this to be a raised bed area so clients with mobility issues can access the garden.

McNichols said there will also be an area to grow pumpkins and an area for native species that are beneficial and help with pollination.

“We really are excited,” McNichols said. “We would like to have a little citrus grove, figs, elderberry, maybe mayhaw. We’re entertaining a lot of possibilities.

Individuals who would like to donate to the community garden can email vista@stctr.org