The Ad Hoc Committee has been hard at work. Our guiding principles are to make each garden more attractive with less maintenance. Several decisions have been made and the committee would like to share this progress with the Congregation:

The name of the interior garden will now be The Agape Garden. Agape is the Greek word for the highest form of love. It “embraces a universal, unconditional love that transcends and persists regardless of circumstance. In Christianity, agape refers to “the fatherly love of God for humans as well as the human reciprocal love for God.”
A new “hardscape” plan incorporates a patio with lovely walkways leading from all three entrances to the garden. The patio will be constructed with very attractive Unilock Steel Mountain pavers and Basalt edgers. Surrounding the patio will be small shrubs. The borders of the garden will be more attractive with the use of chipped white marble stone.
A seating arrangement envisioned by the committee includes three two-person benches, a large central table and two small tables for accent and use when people are seated on the benches.
Attractive window boxes will be added just beneath the three large windows on the South side of the garden and the single window on the East side of the garden. These window boxes will allow a wide variety of colorful flowers throughout the growing season
The exterior garden in front of Fellowship Hall will be planted with small shrubs which will remain attractive all year long.
Enhancements will be made to the several walkway gardens on the South side of the CE buildings. Small shrubs and bushes will be selected to add color year-round. Again, these gardens are being designed to require less maintenance and yet provide year-round beauty.

Additional work is being done in researching construction of a possible Biblical Garden which can be both an attractive garden as well as an educational garden through signage concerning the plants and their historical significance in biblical terms. As this idea is further developed, the committee will share its ideas with the Church membership. Anyone interested in this concept may contact Judy Chessa or Connie Knapp.

The Ad Hoc Committee is overjoyed to share with the congregation that we have had three anonymous donations which will cover the current costs of reimagining The Agape Garden and several of our exterior gardens. One of the anonymous donations provides funds for on-going maintenance of The Agape Garden over a five-year period.

Members of the Ad Hoc Committee for this reimagining work are: Judy Chessa, Connie Knapp, Karen Gerth, Bud Coccodrilli, Jerry Amato, Katharine Frase, and myself. The committee is so very thankful for the donations and the interest of the congregation in this gardening work. Likewise, donations of time and talent in helping to reconfigure our gardens will be very much appreciated later this Spring. Anyone wishing to make a financial gift to this work can do so through the Church office. The committee was commissioned to work on only certain of our exterior gardens. Any additional contributions will find very good homes in other of our gardens.

~Dick Seymour for the Ad Hoc Committee