A garden in Kittery is providing a place where people can do good during a dark time.
“When the pandemic struck last spring, it felt like we were missing out on connecting with our community,” recalls Lisa Linehan, executive director of the Kittery Land Trust. “Our events were canceled, we couldn’t work with students, so how could we lift our neighbors?”
One idea: start a garden where the trust could grow fresh produce to help address food insecurity. Jackie Nooney, who owns the 30-acre farm across from Shapleigh School, agreed to let KLT plant a “giving garden” on her property. Not only did Nooney share the land, she tilled it, gave the trust access to the barn, and provided tools and equipment – all, says Linehan, “in the spirit of community.”
The idea took off, with an immediate outpouring of support from townsfolk. “They had seeds and seedlings, compost, tomato stakes, and fencing to donate,” Linehan says. Fifty volunteers, including many new ones, signed up to water, weed, tend, and harvest.
By season’s end, the garden produced more than 1,750 pounds of fresh produce, donated to local organizations that provide food for neighbors. That success piqued KLT’s interest in purchasing the former dairy farm, already on the market. The trust closed on the property in December 2020. Nooney gave them owner financing with multiple years to pay it off. They’re nearly halfway there, bolstered by a $32,000 grant from MaineCF’s Maine Land Protection fund.
The trust envisions a full complement of community benefits from the property: a public walking trail, working farmland, and school programming that will connect Kittery students to nature and farming.
This isn’t the trust’s only ambitious project since its founding in 1987. Spurred by citizens who sought to balance growth with protection of places that make Kittery beautiful and vibrant, KLT has conserved nearly 1,000 acres of the town’s woodlands, wetlands, farmland, and coastline.
“In the middle of a pandemic, at a challenging time for many in our community, it was so clear that many hands and a big vision were already making great things happen here,” says board member Melissa Paly. Nooney Farm expands the trust’s work in a new direction rooted in its mission: to save land and build community.
Annie Teegarden of Kittery tends seedlings at Nooney Farm, where she has leased a plot of land and greenhouse space to launch Four Patch Farm, a new business that will sell vegetables and cut flowers. Photo Jill Brady
Conserving and Connecting
Maine Community Foundation launched the Conservation for All and Maine Land Protection grant programs last year to support organizations and projects that provide access to the outdoors. Conservation for All provides grants to organizations and projects that connect people in Maine to its land and water. Maine Land Protection awards grants for land acquisition or conservation easement projects. Both programs are designed to support people and communities that face more barriers to outdoor experiences or have traditionally had fewer opportunities to engage in conservation activities.
Here is a sampling of the funds’ first grants:
- Downeast Lakes Land Trust, Grand Lake Stream, to acquire 2,025 acres in Lakeville to expand the Downeast Lakes Community Forest for outdoor recreation, sustainable forestry, wildlife habitat, and shoreline conservation
- Hearty Roots, Bristol, to connect children from low-income homes to nature through outdoor adventure programming
- Maine Farmland Trust, Belfast, to purchase an easement at Liberation Farms, the Somali Bantu Community Association’s cooperative farm in Lewiston
- Portland Parks Conservancy, to develop a plan for more use of shoreline, trails, woods, and fields at Riverton Trolley Park
- Somerset Woods Trustees, Skowhegan, to increase public use of Somerset Woods Trustees conservation lands in partnership with Main Street Skowhegan
- Waterville Community Land Trust, to acquire Kennebec River shoreline, provide access for a loop trail, and protect historic Franco-American farms.
For more information about these grant programs, contact Senior Program Officer Maggie Drummond-Bahl at (877) 700-6800 or by e-mail at mbahl@mainecf.org.
