Garden workers help in the gardens that provide food for the local food pantry. Photo provided by Rockton UMC.

Every spring, a corner of the Rockton UMC parking lot fills with people holding shovels. Some are members of our congregation, while others are part of the Roscoe Gardening Club. Together, they clear away debris from winter, refresh the soil, and plant in the raised beds. From July until early fall, the harvest is donated to a local food pantry.

The project began under Rev. Carolyn Lucasick in Spring 2025. She saw an unused part of our parking lot and a group of neighbors who knew how to grow things. The church provided the space, and the Gardening Club provided the knowledge. From the beginning, the harvest was committed to a food pantry, and this decision was important. Because the vegetables always go somewhere else, no one has ever had to argue about whose garden it is. It belongs to the community.

A local Scout troop and their families built the sign to highlight the partnership. Photo provided by Rockton UMC.

This is our second year, now with Pastor Seonghyun Choi. We added two trellises this spring, one for flowers and one for lettuce. The club members also built vertical planters from wooden pallets along the brick wall. Last fall, a local Scout troop and their families built the sign that now stands at the edge of the beds. The sign names both the club and the church.

The partnership did not remain inside the garden. We have hosted trunk or treat jointly, and we have also watched football games together. Some of our members and Pastor Seonghyun Choi attend the monthly meetings of the Gardening Club, where they learn about wildflowers and local wildlife.

Photo courtesy of Rockton UMC.

We have also recently welcomed a new member. We first met her as a board member of the Gardening Club. She kept in contact with us, came to the joint events, began to attend Sunday worship, and finally decided to join our church. We did not plan the garden as an outreach strategy. But a person who had no particular reason to enter our building found one.

The garden mainly required a piece of ground that the church was not using, a neighboring group with knowledge that we lacked, and a shared goal specific enough to organize around: food for a pantry. Congregations often ask how they can connect with the community around them. In our case, the answer had nothing to do with starting a new program. We noticed who was already nearby, already organized, and already serving, and we offered to join their efforts on ground that the church could share.