Recently Reading Rotary voted to donate $6,000 to support the expansion of the Reading Community Garden located at the Mattera Conservation Area. This approval comes after two months of collaboration between the Reading Rotary Club and the Community Garden Steering Committee.

 

Reading Rotary is applying for a districtwide grant to help fund this project.  Rotary districtwide grants support projects that promote the seven focus areas of Rotary: promoting peace, fighting disease, providing clean water and sanitation, saving mothers and children, supporting education, growing local economies, and protecting the environment.  Sheila Clarke, Reading Rotary Co-President, explains, “I reached out to Town Manager Fidel Maltez to ask if there were local projects that might fit these focus areas.  He was kind enough to connect us with the Community Garden Steering Committee and we began to have discussions to see if Rotary could help.”

 

Community Garden Steering Committee member Cathy Zeek explains, “We have a local volunteer who maintains a small garden bed that provides fresh produce for clients of the Reading Food Pantry.  This garden plot was able to provide produce for Food Pantry clients this past year but we would love to create a much larger garden plot, fully run by volunteers, to be able to provide a larger amount and greater variety of produce to support the more than 120 households who use the Reading Food Pantry. We currently don’t have funds to buy the supplies to make that happen.”