Onions, cabbages and carrots are now among the vegetables growing out front of the Hueytown and Pleasant Grove Boys & Girls Clubhouse, after volunteers from Maynard Nexsen and Regions Bank recently helped students at the club fill and seed new planters at the site.
The six new planters, constructed and given by United Way of Central Alabama (UWCA) staff, were filled by about 20 students, who had just arrived at the clubhouse after school, with the aid of six United Way Hands On volunteers from Regions and Maynard.
The garden, part of the club’s health education programming, is one of a variety of projects that Hands On volunteers have done for the Boys & Girls Clubs of Central Alabama, said Tamara Ingram, Area Director for the organization, which is a UWCA partner agency. Other projects include laying sod and spreading gravel at the Brookside Clubhouse, as well as filling and seeding planters at other locations.
Beyond the volunteers’ labor, Ingram said that just their presence is beneficial to the children who visit the Boys & Girls Clubs.
“With the kids that we serve,” Ingram said, “to see some people besides the staff that they see every day, from different parts of the community, that work different types of jobs and to know that someone potentially took off early from a job to come and help them with something is huge for the children.”
To strengthen the broader community of Central Alabama, Ingram said, everyone must do their part.
“Anywhere you look throughout our city — the smaller towns within this area — I just think that you can find someone who has a need, and if you have something within your means or your power to give, I think it’s our responsibility as neighbors of one another to do that,” said Ingram.
To learn more about United Way Hands On, go to https://unitedwayhandson.org, and for other ways to give, check out https://www.uwca.org/get-involved.
