Myrtle Beach Woman Spearheads Community Garden Project

Myrtle Beach resident Sybil Lee traveled to Swaziland with the Peace Corps in 2012.

A longtime proponent of community gardening, Lee was impressed with the fact that the organization was big on sustainability. While in Africa, she was able to broaden her knowledge of a concept called permaculture, which is defined by Merriam-Webster as “an agricultural system or method that seeks to integrate human activity with natural surroundings so as to create highly efficient self-sustaining ecosystems.”

Lee cites permaculture as one of her loves – and in fact earlier this year traveled to Africa again, this time with a group called CARE for AIDS, which provides assistance for families affected by HIV/AIDS in Kenya. She gave a class in permaculture while she was in Kenya.

“Permaculture is using what you have to make what you want – which is really my whole theory in life,” she said.

She returned to the Grand Strand after her time in the Peace Corps with renewed enthusiasm for community gardening, and said she had been praying about finding the right location on the Grand Strand.

Divine providence intervened two days after she returned and was sitting inside Bay Naturals. One of the kitchen staff at the time, Nathan Maier, told her that he wanted to set up a garden. This was the spark she needed, and the pair teamed up to make the garden a reality.

Ultimately, they found a parcel of land at Real Life Church on 65th Avenue North, which moved to a new location after the property went up for sale.

Maier has since relocated away from Myrtle Beach.

The garden had been in place for two years. Lee still maintains a garden there with longtime advocate for the homeless, Dr. Bill Davis – but water has been shut off at the property.

“We are doing this garden together and we want to feed the homeless, but we have been making it smaller and smaller because we didn’t have any running water,” she said, adding that they were collecting water from gutters and transporting it to the site in a garbage can.

“There are buried plastic jugs. We fill them up and that disperses water into the garden,” she said, which is permaculture in action.

The produce from this garden went toward Davis’ efforts with feeding the homeless, as well as to other people who worked the garden.

Lee said that support from the congregation at Real Life Church consisted in occasional donations of leaves.

“I would ask for leaves, and you need that for permaculture gardening. I use the leaves so that you have less weeds, and when people come to cut the grass, they can see distinctly where the garden was and so they would know not to get near it,” she said.

But it takes more than leaves to build an outreach.

“You see community gardens all over the world, and there are even books out that explain how to get a church involved in an outreach ministry like this – and this is where I am working – trying to get a congregation involved and seeing that as a fulfillment of their ministry.”

Emboldened by her belief in the value of community gardening, she went on a quest for a new location, and her efforts seem to have paid off.

Faith Presbyterian Church has given its blessing by allowing Lee and Davis to use a yard on church property.

Lee might have been nervous about approaching Faith Presbyterian, but that did not slow her down.

“When you do what God wants you to do, you just do it – and I just did it,” she said. “I went and showed them what is happening in Market Common [there is a community garden in place there], and that there are people who would like to have a garden right here – and that we have the knowledge.”

Currently, Lee is putting the finishing touches on a grant application for PalmettoPride, a legislative initiative in place to help beautify South Carolina and eliminate litter.

“The grant application is due November 15 – and part of PalmettoPride is making things look prettier. The yard right now is just plain, so what we want to do is not just grow vegetables, but to grow flowers.”

Applications for garden plots are currently being accepted, but they need to be in by the end of the month. The garden is set to open in January.

As the community reels from the effects of Hurricane Matthew, the long-term damage from the storm and its residual impact on property and people will likely be tough to calculate.

But immediately following the ravages of Matthew, Lee observed the outpouring of support – friend-to-friend, neighbor-to-neighbor – helping each other; whether by sharing food, helping cut up fallen trees or offering shelter.

She sees community gardening as a logical extension of that community goodwill. Also, what mother nature wrought could be used for permaculture.

“You have all of those trees that are down, and leaves all over the place. You can take those leaves and use them to put all around your garden – and you are not going to have weeds,” she said. “You can use them to hold the moisture. People are asking other people to pick it up, but in six months they are going to be paying for wood chips. You are going to be paying for peat moss and all of that stuff – and here it is sitting in front of the curbs.”

Lee is all about imparting permaculture skills to others.

“That’s the reason why we want to have community gardens – so that this knowledge can be shared and that we can have a healthier community,” she said.

Davis said his efforts to feed the homeless have improved over the past couple of years. Where at one time he had to play cat-and-mouse with authorities to feed the hungry in a sort-of renegade fashion, he now has five churches on board that invite area homeless inside each week for a buffet meal – a concept called meal sharing.

He and a group of volunteers maintained a garden site at Good Shepherd Anglican Church in Myrtle Beach for a number of years, for the express purpose of growing vegetables for the Saturday meals for the homeless. Nathan Maier found this location as well. The installation of a drainage ditch made it necessary for them to move.

“Sybil had been coming occasionally as a volunteer, and she asked us to come to her garden,” he said, but things changed again when that property went on the market and the water was shut off.

Faith Presbyterian Church is across the street from Davis’ longtime home on 79th Avenue North.

“How deep is that – and I believe it is what you call a God incident,” he said. “I think God is working in it and somehow we are being pulled along.”

Each garden bed will be 4x8 with two large beds set aside for feeding the homeless.

“We’re pulling in new people already to help us do the basic homeless garden part – and to oversee the rest of the garden,” he said. “I will probably be instrumental in that because it’s so convenient. It’s my neighborhood. I love to go door to door and tell people about this – and look forward to meeting my neighbors. It’s exciting – and just being the door opener for them: ‘Hey – we’ve got a community garden going here – won’t you join us?’”

Myrtle Beach City Council Member Michael Chestnut sees the advent of a third community garden in Myrtle Beach [with the Market Common and the Garden of Hope on Dunbar Street] as a “the more, the merrier” proposition.

“It’s just like another sport,” he said. “The way I see it, I think it would probably open some doors for more communication from people throughout the city that have an interest or the knack for gardening – but also it will bring more people together. Some people take pride in saying ‘hey – I grew this watermelon or I grew these tomatoes.’ I think it’s a positive thing for any community and gives people a different outlet on doing something in life that they like doing – or sharing their talents – or things that they have learned in the past.”

Pastor Ted Ragsdale of Faith Presbyterian Church is currently on vacation. In his stead, the questions emailed by The Sun News were answered by consensus from church elders.

“Our church members are interested in serving the people in the neighborhood and larger community. We hope to [be] able to share the gospel of grace through this garden. It was presented to us as not only gardening for personal use, but also additional plot(s) used to feed the homeless, which is a tangible way to share grace.”

The church elders noted a series of benefits to having the garden in place as far as the community is concerned:

“A: Outreach of the church to integrate closer with our neighbors and promote positive social interaction among themselves.

B: A good opportunity to learn about food and agriculture, with the possibility of developing partnerships with local schools and after school organizations to develop on-site educational and cultural arts activities.

C: General maintenance and upkeep with site improvements.

D: Future plans to organize social events to build community such as seed swap or potlucks as well as scheduling monthly speakers.”

According to Lee, a garden like this can bring people together.

“A community garden can be the eyes and ears of the community itself,” she said.

For more information or to request an application, contact Sybil Lee (843)443-5776 or Bill Davis (843)421-4366

This story was originally published October 28, 2016 at 12:55 PM with the headline "Myrtle Beach Woman Spearheads Community Garden Project."