The Trenton Times published the following article on July 20, 2013. To read the full article, click here.

SAGE Coalition turns vacant lot into Gandhi Garden in Trenton

By Alyssa Mease/The Times of Trenton 
on July 20, 2013 at 6:40 AM

TRENTON — Once an abandoned lot with neck-high weeds, the Gandhi Garden on East Hanover Street has become quite the oasis, according to its caretakers.

“We use it every day. We call it ‘The Island,’ because it’s almost like when you come in here you’re not in Trenton anymore,” said William Kasso, the founder of the community engagement group SAGE Coalition, which created the garden.

Until last summer, the space was an abandoned lot filled with illegally dumped tires. SAGE members turned the tires into planters, built walkways, planted flowers and brought in benches and a picnic table to create The Island, Kasso said.

Graham Apgar, the SAGE artist who designed the garden, said he hopes the space becomes a community retreat.

“Here’s a place to hang out, relax,” Apgar said.

The garden was named after the Indian peace advocate because Kasso painted a mural of him on a wall at the back of the lot in 2008 as part of a community art project
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SAGE moved into an art studio next door to the wall last year, and its artists, whose focus is on street beautification projects, decided to beautify the abandoned lot, which measures 48 feet by 242 feet and spans 223 and 225 E. Hanover St.

Apgar drew up a plan and enlisted help to bring his vision to life.

“The community and the other artists here, I couldn’t have done it without them. We’re all kind of working on it together,” he said.

The Trenton Downtown Association owns the lot, and Isles, a nonprofit that works to make Trenton a more liveable city, provided some gardening materials and assistance as part of its garden support network. City officials helped ensure a garden could be put in the abandoned space and neighbors have helped with the planting, Apgar said.

The garden started taking shape last fall. The group doesn’t grow much food, so it’s mostly just landscaping, Kasso said.

“Right now we have a few garden boxes, so we don’t have enough to do a big harvest,” Kasso said.

He said he wants the garden to motivate neighbors to start growing their own vegetables and plants, which they can do with a little bit of elbow grease.

“Our whole goal is to show people how to do this themselves,” he said.

He said a man drove up to the garden about a month ago and asked if he could take some mulch because he was inspired to start a garden in his own backyard.

“It was crazy, it was so random,” Kasso said.

But perhaps the best visitor to the garden has been the grandson of its namesake, Arun Gandhi, Kasso said.

Last month Gandhi was in Philadelphia giving a talk. He had seen a brochure about the garden and decided to stop by on his way back to his home in Rochester, N.Y., Kasso said.

The fact that news of the tiny garden spread all the way to New York was surprising because SAGE Coalition has not done much advertising and had never reached out to Gandhi, Kasso said.

“That’s when it really hit us, the impact of what we’re doing,” he said.

The garden is just about finished, and the group hosts weekly “Chillin’ With Gandhi” events so neighbors can hang out and do some light maintenance. The events are held Mondays from 5 to 9 p.m. The garden is always open for the public to enjoy.

“It’s really community work and we want to get a lot of people involved,” Kasso said.

For more information, visit the garden’s Facebook page atfacebook.com/theGandhiGarden

Contact Alyssa Mease at amease@njtimes.com or at (609) 989-5673.