Detroit — The way Billie Hickey explains it, St. Christine’s Garden doesn’t just supplement what’s available for distribution at St. Christine’s Food Pantry, but provides the kind of food too often missing from some Detroiters’ diets – fresh produce.
“It gives people here in the Brightmoor neighborhood the opportunity to eat better and be more healthy,” says Hickey, who coordinates the garden on Dacosta Street just north of Fenkell.
As in many other sections of Detroit, many Brightmoor residents do not have easy access to full-line grocery stores, and tend to do a great deal of their food shopping at convenience stores, she says.
So Hickey took on the task this year of turning the backyard of one of the buildings of St. Christine Christian Services into a community garden to supply the food pantry.
With the help of the Greening of Detroit’s Garden Resources Program and $20 worth of plants and seeds, Hickey produced a garden that has yielded plentiful quantities of carrots, potatoes, broccoli, kale, lettuce greens, collard greens, onions, cabbages, watermelons, cantaloupes, crowder peas, green beans, eggplant, tomatoes, cucumbers, some herbs and several varieties of peppers.
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Her chief assistant in the effort has been her husband, Bill, but there have also been some other volunteers, including a youth group and even a man fulfilling his court-ordered community service,
Hickey, who has also been — and remains — involved with several other community gardens in the city, says she plans to expand St. Christine’s Garden next year.
Billie and Bill Hickey are members of Gesu Parish in the University of Detroit Mercy McNichols Campus area, but now make their home in the Brightmoor neighborhood.
Brightmoor continues to be served by the social services outreach programs that were first launched by the now closed St. Christine Parish.
Now under the umbrella of Christ the King Parish, St. Christine Christian Services has maintained the food pantry and soup kitchen, and added other community programs, such as adult computer classes, a summer camp program for children and senior citizen activities.
Its director, Annmary Demyan, says, “Billie Hickey and her husband have been tremendous — we couldn’t do what we are doing without them.”
How to help
For information about becoming a volunteer with St. Christine’s Garden next year, call (313) 535-7272. To provide financial assistance to the programs of St. Christine Christian Services, mail donations to 15317 Dacosta, Detroit 48223.
