The Colgate Community Garden will be hosting a Fall Festival this Thursday, September 20 from 5 to 7 p.m. This Colgate landmark is important to the community for a multitude of reasons, but many students don’t know much about it. In this article, you will learn about why the garden is so great and how you can get involved with its upcoming special event.

The Colgate Community Garden is researched, funded and managed by students. It is located on Route 12b, just past the Colgate Townhouses and Good Nature Brewery. In addition to growing vegetables and herbs, the garden is also home to Colgate’s bees, which will begin to produce honey soon.

The Garden sells to Chartwells, which in turn uses the vegetables for various dishes in Frank Dining Hall. In this way, Chartwells helps to cut down on the transportation of vegetables that would have otherwise traveled from farther away. As a result, the food produced in Frank is more sustainable because less carbon is released in transit. The Garden also sells to Good Nature Brewery.

In addition to these entrepreneurial endeavors, half of the Garden’s crop yield is donated to the Hamilton Food Cupboard. According to the Food Cupboard, between 150 and 200 families visit each month to get food. Factors such as job loss, low-paying jobs and the rising prices of food all contribute to families needing help from the Cupboard. These factors indicate a problem of food insecurity in the county, which occurs when people do not have regular access to nutritionally adequate food that will allow them to lead a healthy life, according to Food Bank for New York City. When people do not have adequate access to food, it affects all facets of their lives. This is why ending food insecurity is so essential. For this reason, the Garden’s involvement in the Food Cupboard is critical for helping the community and has a lasting impact.

If learning about the garden got you excited, come to the Fall Festival this Thursday. There will be food from Flour and Salt and the Hamilton Eatery, as well as lawn games and terrarium build- ing. There will also be a pie eating contest with fun prizes, though entry is limited to five people. If you would like to enter, please contact [email protected]. Tours will be given of both the garden and the apiary so that residents and students can learn more about how the garden operates.