Grace in gardening
BP resident donates food grown at Carlow University to campus food bank
Isabelle Finnegan has always had a giving spirit along with a green thumb.
The Bethel Park resident is combining the two qualities for a good cause – Grace’s Garden at Carlow University in the Oakland section of Pittsburgh. The garden’s bounty is donated to a food pantry on campus.
Finnegan, 20, said the garden is named in honor of her late grandmother, Jacqueline Fettis-Waldo, who was known as “Grandma Grace.”
“She raised my mother and her siblings in an impoverished area,” Finnegan said. “She was a single mother coming out of an abusive relationship, taking care of four children of her own, which was kind of unheard of at the time. She had a garden and she would feed her family and some of her community members who also were less fortunate. Since then, gardening has been in my family. She taught me a long time ago that if you have nothing to give you still have your time and kindness.”
The initial seeds for the garden were sewn in the spring of 2023, when Finnegan and Kayla Daberko of South Park began a plant club at the school.
“There had been no club like it at the time,” said Finnegan, a 2022 graduate of Bethel Park High School. “So we decided to become pioneers, I guess you could say, and start the club. We came together mostly because we have a shared love of plants.”
They hoped to use the greenhouse in the science building, but it was uninhabitable.
“The heating and cooling system is broken so nothing can really be grown in there,” Finnegan said. “We’ve been growing out of a little prep room that is adjacent to the greenhouse, but there’s really not that much room in there. We have a couple house plants in there, but there’s no room to grow any food.”
Undeterred, the plant club asked the college president about beginning a campus garden. Permission was granted, and this spring marked the beginning of Grace’s Garden on a plot of land on campus.
Monetary donations poured in, along with community support. Needed supplies were donated by Andy Amrhein, owner of Evey True Value in Bethel Park, a place where Finnegan had worked.
“Community members were donating extra plants they had seeded from their gardens that they didn’t need and a couple of trellises were donated,” Finnegan said.
Grace’s garden has proven to be fruitful. So far, it has produced two different kinds of green beans, 15 tomato plants, zucchini, yellow squash, butternut squash, pumpkins, assorted peppers, herbs, cucumbers, blueberries, blackberries, potatoes and what Finnegan described as some “mystery seeds.”
The crops are donated to The Purple Door Food Pantry on campus, which not only supports Carlow students, faculty and staff, but the public as well.
Sister Sheila Carney, special assistant to the president, said the campus community has benefitted from the garden.
“The first (bit of) produce has come to the Purple Door,” Carney said. “Our neighbors who are availing themselves of that service that we offer are enjoying the first fruits of her labors.”
Carney supervises the director of mercy service, who is responsible for the Purple Door. She said she is quite impressed with Finnegan’s effort.
“For a young person to take on a project like that is a pretty significant endeavor,” she said. “It reaches out to the needs of the community. West Oakland is a food desert. To acknowledge that, and to look for a way to address that problem, I think is remarkable.
“Something we say at the Sisters of Mercy is we’re looking for the next great need. I think she stepped right into that. Whether she ever heard that on campus or not, I don’t know, but she certainly lives it. She understood the difficulty in our community and she looked for a way to solve it.”
Carlow was founded in 1929 by the Sisters of Mercy.
“I literally go around on campus and give food to people,” said Finnegan, a third-year health sciences student who hopes to be a physician’s assistant.
She would like to extend the growing season throughout the year, which can be accomplished if the greenhouse is fixed.
She said being able to provide for others brings her great satisfaction.
“My family has been volunteer-oriented my entire life,” Finnegan said. “I have never not been volunteering for something. It’s euphoric in a way. It brings me so much joy and makes my heart so full to be such an integral part of the community. Food brings everyone together. Everyone needs to eat.”