The Charleston Parks Conservancy's highly successful community garden at # Medway Park now has spacious pavilion, thanks to graduate students from the Clemson Architecture Center.

With input from Conservancy staff and community gardeners, the dozen students involved spent their fall semester designing and building a new garden pavilion at the community garden, located at 2113 Medway Road in the Riverland Terrace neighborhood on James Island.

They combined aesthetics and function for a structure that will serve as a gathering place for gardeners, as well as a place to work and store tools. 

Construction began in early November and students are putting the finishing touches on their work this week.

The Conservancy funded the cost of the materials at about $10,000.

Additional fundraising is underway to complete a water collection station that is being designed into the garden pavilion. The cost to complete that piece of the project will be $4,000 and donations are still needed.

In the past, undergraduate students at the center have worked on projects in the Conservancy’s other two community gardens: Elliotborough on the peninsula and Magnolia Community Garden in West Ashley.

The Conservancy's Program Director Jim Martin says the nonprofit is fortunate to have forged a relationship with the architecture center.

"The students are gaining real-world experience designing and building something that people will use everyday, and, in turn, we can enhance the community gardening experience with a pavilion where people can gather with their fellow gardeners or simply sit and admire the fruits of their labors," says Martin.

The conservancy started the community garden two years ago and residents seized the opportunity not only to lease the 60 beds but to learn more about growing vegetables and herbs and meeting neighbors.

Now the garden is in a second phase of development.

In November, the Conservancy received a $5,000 grant from Publix Supermarket Charities for Medway Park and Community Garden. The first phase of the garden was funded largely by donations from The Standard James Island and Olde Charlestowne Sertoma Club.

Anyone interested in contributing to the work at Medway Community Garden can donate online at www.charlestonparksconservancy.org/donate.

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Contact David Quick at 843-937-5516. Follow him on Twitter @DavidQuick.

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