Services
Shamrock Gardens Helps More than Just Flowers Bloom
Jeanne planting seeds in the greenhouse.
It’s early March and spring looks like it is just starting to emerge, but inside the Shamrock Gardens greenhouse, on the Gallagher Campus in Timonium, spring is already in full swing. Inside the crew of seven Gallagher Services participants are hard at work preparing the over 15,000 plants grown here annually. Catholic Charities’ Gallagher Services is committed to excellence in caring through an array of services for people with developmental disabilities.
On this day the greenhouse is filled with music from a radio and the crew is busy at work. Today they are filling pots with drainage trays, carefully planting seeds, transferring seedlings to larger pots and sweeping up the greenhouse to keep things tidy. Each crew member is assigned their own task and they carry it out with pride. While the gardening program is a year-long commitment for this crew, their time in the greenhouse begins in January and continues until May when Shamrock Gardens holds its annual Mother’s Day Plant Sale.
With help from the Greenhouse Director, Cindy Clancy, this remarkable greenhouse crew is involved in the entire process from selecting which varieties of annuals, vegetable and herbs to grow to helping customers on the day of their sale. “The crew does about 90 percent of the work, everything except watering,” says Cindy. For these Gallagher Services clients, working in the greenhouse is not only a job for which they receive a paycheck, it also gives them a real sense of pride and Cindy uses the work to help them achieve their personal and therapeutic goals.
“Many of our individuals set goals for themselves at the beginning of the year, aims such as learning to be more independent or enhancing their listening skills. I use this time to help them work on the specific skills,” says Cindy. With this in mind Cindy carefully selects jobs for each crew member that suits their strengths and helps them work towards achieving their goals.
Renee and a volunteer from Rockhurst University transplant seedlings.
The work associated with growing and caring for the plants is broken down into small, repetitive tasks each crew member focuses on daily. Cindy also keeps a file cabinet full of books, games and other activities, all with a horticulture theme, for crew members to do between tasks.
After the greenhouse work is completed in May, the crew will move on to vegetable gardening and caring for the other gardens around the property. When fall and winter arrive, then these individuals clean the greenhouse, rake the vegetable patch and prepare for spring by ordering plants, and get signage ready for the sale.
Cindy incorporates other learning opportunities into the program including field trips to local farms and cooking classes where they learn to prepare the fruits and vegetables they grow. The crew also has several community services activities they do each year including donating their left over plants to beautify area nursing homes and replanting the window boxes that hang outside My Sister’s Place Women’s Center.
Year after year, the greenhouse crew returns enthusiastically to Shamrock Gardens to begin the process once again. With the careful guidance of Cindy they find great purpose and meaning in the work they accomplish, while they continue to develop their skills. This spring is already off to a great start and these seven enthusiastic crew members they are looking forward to another successful year.
Sandy helping to sweep up.
Visit Shamrock Gardens for their 7th annual Mother’s Day Plant Sale, Friday, May 7th and Saturday, May 8th from 9am to 4pm.
Read more about Gallagher Services for People with Developmental Disabilities.
Comment on this story
Here's what others had to say
