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Every spring and summer the Hamline Church United Methodist tends to their SPROUT Garden. The garden is fully organized by Hamline Church volunteer leadership with the help of two Hamline Student Interns funded by the Wesley Center and Hamline Kids who spend their Sunday School time over the summer months growing and tending the garden.
The following is a short interview conducted by the Wesley Center’s Communications and Operations Student Lead, Emily Miles, with Pastor Heather Grantham of Hamline Church.
Emily: How would you describe the SPROUT Garden program?
Pastor Heather: The SPROUT Garden is a partnership with Hamline's Wesley Center and with the Sustainability initiatives of Hamline's Environmental and Climate Studies program. The land that we all are on, we are just stewards of it. So any way that we can make real food and care for creation is a kind of way of being in the world. And so, for me, the SPROUT Garden is where we are trying to figure out how to do good together.
Emily: How did the SPROUT Garden start and how long has it been around?
Pastor Heather: The SPROUT Garden has been around for almost 20 years. It was started by a group at the Wesley Center and some students along with members of Hamline Church United Methodist Church who wanted to invest in our community. SPROUT actually stands for Students Protecting Our Underutilized Territories and this program is our way to be better stewards of the earth. It was started as a way to better understand and utilize the Hamline's campus and to find the best places to be able to grow food.
Emily: Who does the SPROUT Garden provide food for?
Pastor Heather: The recipients of all the produce are elders in the Hamline Midway neighborhood, who I think used to be gardeners but who are unable to garden anymore. There are also the members of the Block-Nurse Program that was renamed Hamline-Midway Elders. This program is housed in the church and is a program that aims to keep elderly people in their homes as long as they can before going to a long-term care facility. These people also receive food from the garden as well.
Emily: Who benefits for the garden?
Pastor Heather: Our kind of pedagogy is that the garden is like a classroom. The people that benefit are the people that encounter this garden at all its possible intersections. There are the recipients of the produce of course, but over the summer a lot of our spiritual formation is in the garden. So in the garden itself, the ones who get to benefit are all the students whether they are Hamline students and interns or the young kids who spend their time at the church over the summer, or adult community and congregation members who help volunteer their time at the garden. These groups of people who come together in this garden really benefit from cross-generational relationships.
But also, to me, the easiest way to explain the mystery of whatever is out there, kind of like God, or the divine higher power, is to watch plants grow. We also read Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer as part of the SPROUT Internship program, because it is a nice way of understanding the earth as being in a reciprocal relationship with us--we steward the earth and it gives back to us and we give back to it.
So to make a long answer short, anyone who comes in contact with the SPROUT Garden, we hope will benefit from it.
Emily: My last question I have for you is, how can Hamline students, Hamline Alumni, church members, or anyone in the Hamline-Midway community, become more involved in the SPROUT Garden?
Pastor Heather: Yeah, that is such a good question! I think if someone is interested, stop by any time. We have workdays on Sundays, because that is the day when the majority of us are here. Professor Valentine Cadieux and I are also talking about having meetups on Wednesday evenings with SPROUT Garden Intern Alumni to come back and see it, because every year it is a different garden.
We can always use volunteers who want to steward the kids, help the kids harvest the vegetables to give away. We need people who want to help bring the produce to the recipients. There are so many ways for people can to get involved.
To learn more and become more involved with the SPROUT or Rain Garden contact...
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Written By Emily Miles '25 Wesley Center Operations Communications Student Lead
Interview with Pastor Heather Grantahm of Hamline United Methodist Church