Drop-in center adds garden; hopes to contribute to community

As part of the Superior Mental Health's drop-in center, Stephanie Quick, wanted to find ways to bring people together and out of their homes as the goal of a drop-in center is to provide a positive support system for those with co-occurring illnesses to hang out.

"People I think who have a mental illness feel like their pretty stigmatized and so I think in a rural county there's not a lot of places for people to get together," Quick said.

Originally, she wanted to have things such as a Wii or ping pong table, but the money just wasn't there.

The drop-in center had applied for $120,000 in grant money, but only received a total of $35,000 over a period of two years.

"It was pretty paired down," Quick said. "I didn't have enough money to get all those things so we came together and said what's something else we can do that would draw in the community and promote the drop-in center, but also getting people coming together to do some kind of project that would benefit themselves and the community."

The result was a 72 x 100 foot garden. The garden sits just outside the Health Center on a piece of land that is owned by Pat Byrne. Quick said she approached him and Byrne was happy to let them borrow the piece of ground.

Next, Quick asked some community members of they could help and Pastor Bob Winegar from St. Regis volunteered his time to till up the land. Quick then realized that they needed to have some fertilizer and so she began looking around town and ended up approaching the mink farm.

"We purchased two big trailer loads of mink manure through Dale Campbell to fertilize the garden," Quick said.

Bob Kinney helped rake the fertilizer into the garden and Steve Unruh tilled the fertilizer into the garden and created rows for the center. Quick said they were given generous donations of flowers and vegetables from Castles Market in Superior and from Ted Seaman from Paradise Gardens.

"We have also had volunteers in the community as well as through community service to prepare the garden for planting," Quick said. "A lot of people have made this possible; we couldn't have done it on our own."

Quick said the garden is a community garden in that they plan to give back to the community through the garden. She said that they'd like to donate fresh vegetables to the food bank that are grown in the garden as many people who utilize the food bank often cannot not afford fresh vegetables; rather they opt for a packaged product as it is cheapest.

Quick also said that she'd like to give vegetables to those who utilize the drop-in center. From there, whatever is left over they hope to sell to the community at the farmer's market and money raised will go back into the center.

"It's a community garden in that we want to be able to give back, but it's not going to be a help yourself kind of deal," Quick said. "I want it to be something where people put into it to get something out of it."

Right now, Quick said that those who can be involved in the garden are those who have a co-occurring illness-a mental condition with substance abuse issues.

Quick said she's hoping that they can build the project up so that when they go to reapply for the grant they can use the garden and show that there is sustainability happening within the program.

"Ultimately, we want to weigh out how much produce and pull out," Quick said. "I'm interested to see how much we are able to benefit those in the community."

Quick said that during the drop-in center hours on Thursdays from 11:30 to 3:30 she expects that they'll be out working in the garden some of the time. She said the center is a place to come where people can interact with others like them.

"The point of it is to have an open forum for whatever talents or skills they have and to share them with others and feeling like there's other people out there like them," Quick said.

If you want to be a part of the garden or want more information Quick can be reached at 406-532-9150.