Rooted in Community Garden
A community space for courage, curiosity, stewardship and more.
Our Community Garden
The Office of Community Enrichment is excited to announce the launch of the Rooted in Community Garden at 1800 Sherman.
Enrichment means many things—making something richer, fuller, more meaningful. In OCE, our goal is to facilitate enrichment by locating places in our community that are seeking growth and offer tools, skills, and resources to encourage that growth. Our aim is thriving, not just surviving. The Rooted in Community Garden is a living metaphor for our work as an office.
The Rooted in Community Garden is also a place for us to live out our values—courage, integrity, abundance, curiosity, and stewardship.
- As Leona Quist has been known to say, “the best gardeners have the biggest trash cans.” Gardening, like many things, requires the courage to fail. Some plants grow while others die, despite our best efforts. We prune, re-plant, and try again.
- Gardening orients us toward growth, possibility, and anticipation. It supports a mindset of abundance. In our community garden, we will be surrounded by many beautiful things and be in community with one another to experience it.
- A garden requires integrity to flourish. We make a commitment to care for the space, and we are accountable to fulfilling this commitment. Through gardening, we’re also (re)integrating ourselves with the natural world.
- Gardening is about practicing good stewardship with plants and people. We embrace environmental stewardship by focusing on contributing to the biodiversity around us, engaging in zero/low waste practices whenever possible, and educating ourselves and others about environmental caretaking.
- A garden is a space where curiosity can bloom. Every aspect of the gardening process, from tending to sensitive seedlings to caring for mature plants and even to breaking down the garden at the end of a season Is an opportunity to learn, explore, and create.
There is an abundance of research that shows the psychological, physical, and social benefits of being outside in/with nature. Our patio may be small, but it presents us with big opportunities to contribute to our own wellbeing and the wellbeing of others. We hope the Rooted in Community Garden is a place where you can look forward to coming to work in a community that’s oriented toward exploration, care, aesthetic joy, and collaboration.
Ways to Get Involved
Everyone is welcome to visit the garden, smell the flowers (literally), and for your own enjoyment.
Other ways to get involved include:
- Becoming part of the Rooted in Community care team to support the garden. This includes watering, pruning, checking the plants for signs of health, etc. Email us at community-enrichment@northwestern.edu to find out more.
- Have lunch or your next meeting in the garden! We created Rooted in Community so that we could have an outdoor space that felt nourishing and beautiful. We encourage you to use the space!