BACG History Post #40
On June 17, 1981, Mayor Sanders showed his support for community gardening in Burlington with a proclamation honoring the 10-year anniversary of the food gardening initiative begun in 1972 by Gardens for All.
Sanders pledged the support of city departments and the city's Special Projects Fund to ensure the continuation and success of Burlington's community gardens.
Renamed the "Burlington Community Garden Program," 25 ft. x 30 ft. garden plots were available at 11 sites.
Plot fees increased from $10 to $15 in 1982, with a $5 clean-up deposit. Fees included tilling, water, gardening classes, and a summer newsletter. An application form was instituted, with mail-in registration.
Community garden availability in and around Burlington decreased from 500 plots in 1981 to 400 plots for the 1982 season.
Gardens for All established a perennial nursery at the Intervale Community Garden the previous year. Fruit trees were planted at several community garden sites.
Thabault led a series of four free gardening classes during May and June. Classes were held at the Intervale Community Garden, Fletcher Free Library, and Cathedral Square Apartments.
Gardens for All also sponsored organic gardening workshops presented by Larry Sommers and JoAnne Dennee. The workshops on intensive gardening and insect control were held at the Intervale Community Garden.
Gardens for All continued to support the youth gardening program at the Franklin Square Housing Project in Burlington's New North End. The program (photo above) was led by Chittenden County 4-H, which provided seeds and gardening classes.
BACG History Post #38
In 1978, six Garden Way companies were combined under Garden Way, Inc. The 12 founding stockholders became equal partners in the corporation. Five stockholders worked with Garden Way Associates, based in Vermont. The other seven stockholders worked with Garden Way Manufacturing, the largest division of the corporation, based in Troy, New York.
From 1979 through 1980, the New York branch of Garden Way continued to make healthy profits selling Troy-bilt roto-tillers, while the Vermont-based operations accrued a substantial loss.
Conflicts emerged among the Garden Way partners and board members around Wood's visionary projects. The 1981 purchase of the Seaway Shopping Center in South Burlington, at a price of four million dollars, proved to be the tipping point.
On January 28, 1982, Lyman Wood was ousted as president of Garden Way in a surprise coup. More than 20 of Garden Way's top employees in Vermont lost their jobs. The coup was engineered by a group of dissident stockholders led by Richard Denholtz, who had worked with Wood since 1960. Denholtz was elected board chair. Dean Leith, Jr. replaced Wood as president of Garden Way.
A series of three investigative newspaper stories were written by a Dan Gillmor. He described the events leading up to the Garden Way coup and the aftermath. The first story, published on February 21, 1982 in the Rutland Herald and Sunday Times Argus is reprinted below.
Gilmor graduated from the University of Vermont in 1981 with a BA in political science. His career as a noted journalist, author, and educator, which began in Vermont, spans more than 40 years.
.jpg)
After the coup, Gardens for All was notified by Garden Way's new owners that it would lose the bulk of its annual funding. The drop in GFA's corporate support was precipitous, from a half million dollars in 1982 to $36,000 of projected revenue in 1983.
To keep the nonprofit organization afloat financially, Gardens for All staffers took pay cuts of up to 50%. Growth efforts focused on GFA's national membership campaign, which had begun in 1980. Membership had reached the level of 55,000 at the end of 1981.
The Gardens for All quarterly newspaper became the principle driver for member recruitment and engagement. In 1983, the break-even goal of 150,000 members was met. By 1985, Gardens for All produced a monthly glossy magazine with a circulation to nearly 250,000 members.
The classified ad to the right, posted by Raap, appeared in the Burlington Free Press on December 22, 1982. The new initiative soon outgrew the space at Gardens for All. In 1983, Raap and eight others founded Gardener's Supply Company as a spin off from Gardens for All.
Gardens for All projects supported by Garden Way funding began to be pruned back in 1982. Burlington's community garden program, which had launched Gardens for All as a nonprofit enterprise ten years earlier, faced a pending transition.
BACG History Post #37
In the fall of 1981, Gardens for All secured a donation of fruit trees from Stark Brothers Nursery to establish a community plant nursery at the Intervale Community Garden.
GFA's horticulturist, Charlie Nardozzi, quickly applied his knowledge and skills to support the long term sustainability of the Burlington Community Gardens Program.
Nardozzi planned workshops to teach volunteers how to take care of the nursery trees and perennials. The plant nursery was over 5,000 square feet with permanent raised beds. Plants included small fruits and berries, herbs, perennial flowers, and food plants such as rhubarb.
The Weed 'em & Reap newsletter helped to engage Burlington's community gardeners in the new initiative to increase food production and a sense of permanence at the garden sites.
BACG History Post #36
The original Champlain Community Garden was a short walk from the Gardens for All headquarters at 180 Flynn Avenue.
The garden site was located to the east of Champlain Elementary School near the chain link fence by the bus barns, with access from Shelburne Street.
Lynn Ocone (photo above on right) and Larry Sommers (photo below) developed youth and community garden projects with Gardens for All.
Charlie Nardozzi (photo below on right) was hired by Gardens for All in the spring of 1981, following his graduation from UVM with a BS degree in horticulture. Nardozzi interned with Gardens for All the previous summer.
Ocone, Sommers, and Nardozzi tested a variety of hands-on gardening activities with kids during the summer of 1981, while providing a healthy project for Burlington children.
Professional black and white photos were taken in 1981 at the Champlain Community Garden.
Several of the photos were integrated into The Youth Gardening Book, authored by Ocone. The guide for teachers, parents, and youth leaders was published by Gardens for All in March 1983.
The Youth Gardening Book was revised and republished in 1990 as the National Gardening Association Guide to Kids' Gardening. Thousands of copies of the resource books were sold, influencing youth and children's gardening programs across the country for more than a generation.
BACG History Post #35
Vermont Life Magazine featured Gardens for All in its Summer 1981 special issue, marking the 25th anniversary of the iconic state publication.
Photos for the Gardens for All story were taken during the summer of 1980. The lead photo is the Medical Center Community Garden. The senior gardener is from the Cathedral Square Housing Project. JoAnne Dennee is photographed teaching children in the garden. Tommy Thompson is shown with the community garden map of the United States.
The article highlighted the diversity of Gardens for All programs on the local, national, and international levels. Through grants, memberships, market research, and publications, Gardens for All was on its way to raising its own funds and becoming less reliant on Garden Way's sponsorship.
Please click the images to enlarge for reading.
