City gardeners' seeds bear fruit; Youth Grow wins cultivator.

WORCESTER - A local group that started planting seeds in an abandoned lot has won a national award for building community relations through environmental education.

The Regional Environmental Council's Youth Grow program was one of 25 community organizations recognized by the National Gardening Association and Mantis, a national gardening-equipment company.

As part of the award, the Youth Grow program was awarded a Mantis tiller/cultivator, a machine that will help with cultivating soil in its community gardens. But more importantly, the award is a display of the program's accomplishments in uniting an urban-based community through environmental programs, said Julius Jones, the group's community gardens coordinator.

Students from the program are often from the city's most urban neighborhoods, and the program has helped them create grass-filled lots, and to learn about the environment, he said.

"People disassociate the environment from the city, but it's more important (for urban kids) than anyone," he said. "It's important for the youth to see their city in that context."

The Youth Grow program runs 27 community gardens in neighborhoods throughout the city, but its "jewel in the crown," Mr. Jones said, is the 3.4-acre garden at 63 Oread St.

Residents and youth from the Main South neighborhood have seen the transformation of the lot into a massive community garden that has produced more than 2,000 pounds of vegetables a year since it was cultivated five years ago.

And teenagers in the program, ages 14 to 16, have worked to build similar gardens throughout the city in the eight-week summer program.

"We are always impressed with the vision, ingenuity and dedication of the organizations that apply for this award," Linda Beattie, Mantis' award program coordinator, said in a statement. "These are grass-roots groups turning slim resources into bountiful gardens with far-reaching benefits, from increasing their community's access to fresh nutritious foods to educating the public about the importance of gardening in our nation's history."