Cooperation with existing institutional structures

Cooperation with Existing Institutional Structures
One of the primary ambitions of the project to create a Holy Cross Community Garden is to
beneficially integrate the garden with groups and organizations that have an established presence
on campus. In doing so, resources can effectively be shared and mobilized, greater support and
participation can be garnered for each organization, and the sense of campus community can be
enhanced. Holy Cross has over 100 student clubs and organizations, which we envision could all
positively interact in some way with a garden program. To more precisely illustrate how this
cooperation could occur, the following is a sample of several prominent groups – Eco-action,
HEAL, Holy Cross Food Nation, Multicultural Peer Educators, and Pax Christi – whose
missions, we believe, would dovetail nicely with that of the HCCG:
1.) Eco-action is a special interest student organization that is dedicated to promoting
awareness on environmental issues to the Holy Cross community. Their members are also

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concerned with “grow[ing] campus consciousness of our relationship to the environment by
organizing education, service, and action opportunities in our com munity” (Holycross.edu).
The presence of a garden would symbolize underlying environmental issues that otherwise
would not have physical representation on campus. It would also provide Eco-action with
an additional medium to promote their messages. Moreover, gardening can be a nature-
based learning tool, which helps connect people with plants, animals, and their
environmental surroundings (Lawson 2005:54). Through cooperation with Eco-action, and
involvement within a garden area, greater educational opportunities would arise for people
to actually be made aware of their situation amidst the issues Eco-action wishes to bring to
our attention.
2.) HEAL , or Healthy Eating and Living peer educators, are students who organize to
inform the Holy Cross student body about nutrition, exercise, and health issues. Through
the planning of various events and programming, such as lectures by nutritionists, exercise
information in the gym, and the arranging of a farmers’ market in the Spring, HEAL
engages with students and community members on and off-campus to educate about health.
Collaborating with Holy Cross Food Nation, HEAL has recently become involved in a
project working to establish a garden program at the Fanning Educational Building in
Worcester, in addition to forming one at Holy Cross. The implementation of a campus
community garden would give HEAL an arena to demonstrate methods of eating healthy
and being active, as well as further the symbolic representation of these types of lifestyles
at Holy Cross.
3.) Holy Cross Food Nation is a group designed to provide a welcoming social
environment for students to discuss their interests in food and to promote dialogues on the

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underlying socio-cultural, economic, and political issues that compose food production and
consumption in the world. The amount of initiative and support that was generated to move