With supplies ordered and permits in hand, the Florida Tech Community Garden officially broke ground on January 9th with a ceremony attended by students, staff and faculty involved in the project.
Daniel Sutton, the university’s sustainability officer, says his vision for the garden is that it serve as the first step forward in an overall initiative called an SLLC (Sustainable Living Learning Community). The initial primary users of the garden will be members of Residence Life seeking to learn more about sustainable gardening. Currently about half of the garden is designated purely for student use. As the initiative progresses, Sutton says the idea is to rent out different gardening plots to anyone who lives/works on campus.
The students involved have cultivated a list of plants and their growing cycles specific to Florida to better help with a successful harvest. Sutton says the amount of research they’ve completed has been instrumental in getting the project off of the ground.
The community garden will have its official grand opening ceremony on Feb. 17th at 4 p.m.
The ground breaking ceremony for our new community garden took place on January 9th in the Residence Quad.
An artist rendering offers a glimpse at what the new garden will look like.
Those in attendance at the groundbreaking included (from left to right) Josh Benfield, Rob Ghiotto, Chad Shoultz and Gabriel Leon.
Resident Directors were also on hand including; (from left to right) Zachary Eichholz, Warren Pittorie, Alexis Miller and Jacqueline Hetherington – along with Pete the Panther.
University Sustainability Officer Daniel Sutton and Professor of
Education and Interdisciplinary Studies, Dr. Ken Lindeman.
Members of Residence Life are seeking to learn more about sustainable gardening through the community garden.
Members of the Residence Life Sustainability Committee.
Four gold shovels were used to dig the first dirt from the community garden.
Ready to dig! (pictured from left to right) are Jacqueline Hetherington, Alexis Miller, Dr. Ken Lindeman, Pete the Panther, Zachary Eichholz, Daniel Sutton and Chad Shoultz.
Florida Tech faculty, students and staff have no problem getting their hands dirty for the community garden.
Even Pete the Panther offered a helping paw during the groundbreaking ceremony.
The community garden will have its official grand opening ceremony on Feb. 17th at 4 p.m.
