New Community garden In Norman Oklahoma

**J*@aol.com**

Friends,
In an unheard of show of support, the  University of Oklahoma has offered 5
acres of land to a community garden start  up headed by Gene Perry and Kara
McKee, two student gardeners with enough  ambition and dedication to pursue
the
project for the last year.   The garden is located in the center of a former
university tree  nursery and has the blessings of David and Molly Boren, the
University president  and his wife.  Last week 6' X 4' plots were laid out for
the 30+  gardeners signed up on newly tilled land and starter plants are being
grown in  the botany greenhouse.  Water is on site as well.
I love this stuff.  A night nurse  at a local hospital signed up 12 fellow
workers and at the first meeting there  were university students as well as us
old folks marking out plots and  watching young kids who helped with the
stakes
and string.  Free land, free  water, a greenhouse, it's enough to make this
old community gardener  cry.
This kind of support has been rare in  Oklahoma; all the original support
groups for community gardens have  languished in the Oklahoma heat.  The
Oklahoma
City Community Foundation and the Regional Food Bank of  Oklahoma, both
hosts, withdrew their support in 2002 due to self-serving  politics.  The
Oklahoma
City  Community Foundation reneged on $35,000 of pledged support without a
notice or  hearing and the food bank followed suit by abolishing the program
due
to the  foundations end of funding.  'Ugly Sunflower gardens' was the term
they  used.
Community leaders such as Allen  Parlier, Lorine Powers, Lou Revel, Lenardo
Smith and Robin Anderson have kept  the promise alive despite the lack of
support for the bugly sunflower gardensb.  Now the area is home to two new
start
ups in Norman and is perhaps stronger for the lack of lip service  support.
John Herndon
OU Community  Garden

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