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Get the most interesting and important stories from the University of Pittsburgh.A Pitt student group is growing connections with the University’s neighbors — through gardening.
Members of the environmental honors fraternity Epsilon Eta Delta, in collaboration with Pitt’s Office of Engagement and Community Affairs and the Oakcliffe Community Organization of South Oakland , are reviving the formerly neglected Oakcliffe Community Garden.
The aim is to make the garden both operational and open to everyone in the area, said Paige Ritti, Epsilon Eta Delta’s finance chair.
“Access to natural environments benefits both mental and physical health. The Oakcliffe Garden is a place for people to be more directly in nature, to engage with it,” added Ritti, a senior who’s pursuing environmental science and English writing majors in the Kenneth P. Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences.
Beauty meets practicality
Decades ago, residents created and tended the Oakcliffe Community Garden at the corner of Lawn and Elsinore streets. But over the years, the project fell by the wayside. That’s where Pitt’s Neighborhood Commitments — place-based community partnerships focused on Pittsburgh’s neighborhoods, including Oakland, where Oakcliffe is located — came in. While attending monthly community meetings, Pitt representatives heard Oakcliffe residents ask for support in breathing new life into their neighborhood garden.
Bringing Epsilon Eta Delta into the fold was an easy decision. The group’s mission is to invest in and steward the environment. Members commit to completing at least 16 volunteer hours a year, and last year the club logged 1,019 hours; some of those hours were dedicated to revamping the Oakcliffe Community Garden.
The Oakcliffe Community Garden project fosters relationships between longtime residents and Pitt students, said Elena Zaitsoff (EDUC ’77), president of the Oakcliffe Community Organization of South Oakland and a resident of 46 years. About 80% of people living in Oakcliffe are students, she added.
“The student volunteers can take pride in the garden and the neighborhood,” Zaitsoff said.
One of the club's first garden projects was planting almost 40 native flowering shrubs donated by the nonprofit Tree Pittsburgh. In addition to beautifying the lot, the new shrubbery also helps mitigate erosion by establishing a root system that holds the soil in place — keeping the area, located on a steep hillside, from sliding downward onto the I-376 Parkway.
Volunteers from Epsilon Eta Delta are also clearing years of weedy overgrowth and hope to have restored garden beds available for community use in the coming months. The student volunteers will grow food to donate to local food banks in two of the garden’s beds.
For volunteer Grace Toman, vice president of Epsilon Eta Delta and a senior majoring in ecology and evolution in the Dietrich School, taking on the Oakcliffe Community Garden has been a learning curve, especially managing the fast-growing weeds, but the effort is worth it.
“When students take initiative to make a direct impact in communities, they show they care about where they are; they care about Pittsburgh,” Toman said.
Photography by Carmon Rinehart