In Summer 2026, we are meeting on Wednesdays and Thursdays from 10:00-11:00. EVERYONE is welcome to join us.
***This FB page is no longer updated regularly. Our garden is located on the UMA Bangor campus behind the fitness center. "The Shire" is a rectangular plot about 25'x 32', with five raised beds made from old sections from the Orono Bog Walk. "The Labyrinth" is a garden labyrinth that uses
hugelkultur (raised mounds) bordering the walkway. The center is planted with creeping thyme, which you can walk on and sit on, and it smells so good. In 2016, the UMA Bangor Veteran Outreach Office and Student Life built a community garden on the Bangor Campus! This work was done by Jason Foley, who was serving as a VISTA Volunteer with the Veteran's office. The goal of the garden was to provide students, veterans and other community members experiencing food insecurity with healthy produce at no cost. It was an amazing project, but there wasn’t enough momentum to keep it going on it’s own! In 2017, a social science class (SSC 334: Cultivating Community, The Garden Seminar) created a Bangor Campus Garden Club and took over the stewardship of the garden. From fall 2018 to spring 2019, we partnered with the Peace & Justice Center of Eastern Maine to build the Labyrinth. Art Coordinators Andrea Simoneau-Williams and Andrew Williams wanted to create an art and food security project, and so we built the labyrinth! Building the hugels took many months of hard work, and we are so grateful to the volunteers from UMA, the P&J Center, and UMaine Orono's Women's Rugby Team! Gardening improves physical health, mental health, increases sense of community, and decreases food insecurity. We’re a small campus of students and many of us are nontraditional, meaning we aren’t all freshly graduating high school, living at home or staying in dorms, living the college dream. Many of us have jobs, kids, and homes to keep up with while being devoted to our degree. According to a study done by Colleen Coffey, Graduate Student, Library Assistant in fall of 2015, over 50% of our student is first-generation (meaning neither parent completed college), 66% of us are over the age of 25, 94% of incoming freshman qualify for Financial Aid, and 74% qualify for income based Pell grants. We aren’t your average university, and because of this some of our students experience problems others might not. According to the study, Maine is the third most hungry state, and almost 50% of surveyed students have attended a class hungry due to lack of money, and 76% self-identified as being concerned about access to food. What does this mean for a garden? It means that it's crucial to have a space to grow healthy food for our campus. Too many students in Maine are facing food insecurity. You might be thinking sure, many of us have been there– but it doesn’t have to be that way. With a community garden, we can help students access fresh fruits and veggies by growing them! Having a garden on campus can help so many people with so many different things. This garden isn’t going to grow itself! We need lots of help, and we’re grateful for anything. Whether it’s hands on help in the garden, donations of any sort, or just words of encouragement- we could use it all. We are a group of welcoming students who would love help! Even if you've never gardened before, join us to learn! Contact the Garden Coordinator, Professor Kati Corlew, at [email protected] if you'd like to learn more!
