By Jesse Herstein, Amway Global

PHILADELPHIA -- Volunteers, Amway Global executives, Boys & Girls Club members and staff rallied on a beautiful Saturday recently.

Around 90 people came together to build a community garden for the Northeast Frankfort Boys & Girls Club. In fact, it was a series of gardens. There was a pizza garden, a salsa garden, a three sisters garden, an herb garden and several others.

We didn't just stop at the planting. Volunteers erected a shed, spread a mountain of mulch, cleaned the grounds, added flowers to the landscaping, and even painted the bathrooms in the Club basement.

Our garden experts from the Green Education Foundation did an amazing job, along with three master gardeners from the local community. To keep the Club members engaged while we adults sweated it out on some of the heavy projects, they created Education Stations. Club members made smoothies, planted onions in pots they could take home, they painted pictures and jumped back and forth between the stations and the garden building.

By lunchtime, it was hard to tell who were volunteers and who were Club staff. And by the end, it was even hard to tell who were the kids and who were the adults. We were all a bit dirty, and having a great time.

Community -- Where Everyone Pitches In!

When the Club's drill ran out of batteries and our volunteers couldn't finish the garden tool shed, one of them ran home to grab his own. When the water and Nutrilite sports drinks needed to be chilled, another drove nearby to her house to pick up another cooler and some ice.

One volunteer was a garden expert herself, and brought along planting tips, and ideas for the Club members to stay engaged by building ownership of the garden beds. Another one lived just down the street, but had never noticed the old brick building with the small sign in the front. He planned to be return.

In fact, they all talked about how they would come back to volunteer, and continue the project. The nutrition curriculum that Amway Global sponsored was written by the Green Education Foundation, and will become a standard manual for garden building within the Boys & Girls Clubs. This means the program will have sustainability and can be replicated at other Club sites.

This was a fantastic way to kick off a new partnership. We hope to expand the program into even more Clubs over the next couple of years. You can find more information on our initial blog posting about the project.

Thanks to all who made this project a success!