Scouts help build up intergenerational garden in Marin City
Updated: Oct 24, 2024
When the Marin City Community Services District first conceived the idea to create an intergenerational community garden at its headquarters on Drake Avenue in Sausalito, officials there reached out to Westminster Presbyterian Church in Tiburon to see if the church had anyone willing to help construct a ramp for the space.
One of the church’s members, Jim Arce, was inspired. Arce is the leader of Scouts BSA Troop 48 in Tiburon, and he thought the garden could be a meaningful project for members of the troop working to earn their Eagle Scout rankings, the highest rank in the organization achieved through completion of a service-oriented leadership project.
“I thought, ‘What a perfect opportunity to help them and help our Eagle candidates find meaningful projects,’” Arce says.
Over the past three or so years, members of Troop 48, which currently has about 25 kids, have joined others in the community to help transform the garden from a mostly empty hillside to a mostly filled out garden, complete with planter boxes, a shade structure and cooking area, a fire pit, benches and more. In that time, seven of the troop’s scouts have earned their Eagle Scout ranking by completing a project in the garden, and one is currently working toward the ranking with a project that includes installing five new planters and a kumquat tree.
“I just appreciate their hard work,” says Geornae Pryor, the garden assistant who helps run the intergenerational garden at the community district. “They are really good helpers.”
Juanita Edwards, interim general manager of the Marin City Community Services District, says the garden was first conceptualized in 2020 with the help of community activists Terrie Green and Sharon Turner. The district cultivated a group of about 10 people ranging from ages 8 to 80 to begin planning the garden during the COVID-19 lockdown in 2020 and began constructing the garden in 2021.
The goal, Edwards says, was to create a space where community members could learn about growing food, spend quality time together and harvest and prepare food.
“The whole purpose of the garden is to give back to the community and have the community have healthy food,” Pryor says.
The garden is one initiative of Marin Healthy Eating Active Living, or HEAL, a county program started in January 2017 that aims to combat food insecurity in the county. According to the program’s website, some 20% of county residents are at risk for food insecurity, which also disproportionately affects Black and Latino residents.
Edwards noted that Marin City is considered a “food desert,” or a residential area with poor access to healthy, affordable food. As part of its work at the intergenerational garden, the district runs a container-garden program that is used in a youth summer camp focused on nutrition.
Pryor says the gardens provide produce that is closer to the Marin City community.
“We don’t have to go all the way to Sausalito or Mollie Stone’s, where the food is really priced up,” she says.
She notes when people in the community do not have access to affordable nutritious food, they gravitate toward junk food, which can cause health problems.
The garden, and the Eagle Scouts’ projects in the garden, are funded by Marin Health and Human Services, the county of Marin, the Marin Community Foundation and private donations.
Among the former Troop 48 scouts who have helped build up the garden is Arya Shadan, a 20-year-old sophomore at Stanford University who grew up in Tiburon and graduated from Redwood High School.
As part of his Eagle Scout project, Shadan in 2021 created the master plan for the garden, designing the garden and building the stairs from the entrance to the garden, enlisting the help of Marin contractor John Scopazzi, a former Eagle Scout himself and member of the San Rafael Rotary.
Shadan spent several weeks taking measurements and creating a detailed and scaled drawing of the garden, settling on a two-level design with planters in each section, a shade structure and cooking area on the bottom level and a fire pit and gathering space on the top level.
He encountered a bit of roadblock when he contracted COVID-19 right before the steps were to be installed at the garden, meaning he had to communicate with volunteers and organize the construction equipment arrivals remotely while isolating. Fortunately, he says, he managed to test negative by the day of construction.
Scopazzi took care of the more technical parts of Shadan’s project, including metal work, building the irrigation system and adding the decomposed granite flooring.
Shadan says the project was challenging, noting he was also juggling applying for colleges at the time. However, he says, he ultimately found it rewarding, noting that he did not complete his Eagle project for the title or badge, but to have an impact on his community and the world around him.
“It’s needless to say that the garden is providing fresh produce for a community that essentially has lacked that fresh produce for a long time,” he says.
Another scout, Nick Hartung, built the fire pit with benches surrounding it. Hartung, a 17-year-old senior at Redwood, finished the project in in the summer of 2023.
He also planted a rose garden along the upper level in front of the seating area, choosing a rose variety called Rosie the Riveter in honor of Edwards’ grandmother, who was a steel worker on ships during World War II.
Ryan Ip, a 17-year-old freshman at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, completed his project in September 2023. He purchased a grill, built two garden gates, installed a counter under the pre-existing shade structure and fixed some of the fences.
Arce noted one of the benefits of having the scouts work in the garden is that they learn about the history of Marin City, which was established in 1942 as a wartime housing development for workers at the Marinship facility in Sausalito and other migrants to California, including many Black people who relocated from the South. After the war, many white residents relocated elsewhere in Marin, while segregation, redlining and other forms of discrimination generally kept Black residents confined to Marin City.
Arce says he has taught his scouts about the history of Marin City and how racism has impacted the community during troop meetings.
“The demographics of Tiburon are quite different,” he says. “For those kids to be aware of that and see it up close, I think is meaningful.”
Ip says that growing up in Tiburon, he didn’t know much about Marin City, despite it being located nearby. However, in working on his project, he says, he learned more about the community and developed a connection with residents, who he noted would compliment the in-progress work. That motivated him even more to complete the project, he says.
“Working on the community garden, you get to meet so many members of the community who would just walk by,” he says.
The Marin City Community Services District held a ceremonial opening for the garden in June, where the troop was recognized for their work.
The district is also planning to build a production garden there to grow produce that could be sold to seniors at the district’s senior center, with hopes to have that running by next June. Arce said his troop may volunteer with the production garden in the future.
Arce says the scouts benefit from their own individual projects in the garden and from being a part of the larger community-wide effort.
“Each one has seen how their project fits with the next and how it’s coming together to build this community garden,” he says. “I think the other thing that they like is it’s tangible, it’s meaningful, and it will be here 50 years from now and it has an impact on a lot of people.”
Reach Naomi Friedland at 415-944-4627. DONATE to support local journalism, or SUBSCRIBE NOW for home delivery and access to the digital replica.
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