Community Garden recieves grant funds
By Jim Newell
Managing Editor
jnewell@mihomepaper.com
OXFORD TWP. – Seymour Lake Township Park got more than a little extra love on Thursday thanks to an $8,000 grant from the Home Depot Foundation, and the Oxford Community Garden – and all those who receive food from the garden – were the main beneficiaries.

The Home Depot Foundation awarded a $8,301.55 grant to Oxford Township Parks and Recreation Department that includes six standard 6-foot picnic tables, two ADA compliant 8-foot picnic tables and two 6-foot park benches.
The grant also covered supplies for the Oxford community garden located at the park, including soil, gloves, six pairs of pruning shears, 5-gallon buckets, lawn/leaf bags, seeds and seven garden colander harvest baskets. The grant was secured by Recreation Supervisor Dawn Medici and Park Superintendent Jeff Kinasz.
All of the food from the community garden – which is cared for and harvested by parks and recreation volunteers – gets donated back to the community, mostly to seniors and those facing food insecurity.
“Our one main program that we donate the food to is to the Free Meals program that’s held on Wednesday evenings in the downtown (Oxford),” Medici said. “And then Hope Senior Apartments, Meals on Wheels. And then if we have an instructor that wants to do a cooking class and it’s during that time of the year we’ll use (the produce) for the youth and adult enrichment cooking classes.”
The tables and benches will be placed around the community garden, the Davis Family Farmers Market pavilion and at locations throughout Seymour Lake Township Park.
“It’s all those little things that add up for our volunteers when they come out to help in the garden. It’s really going to be nice,” Medici said. “Year after year, Home Depot does not disappoint. Whether it’s a couple hundred dollars here and there for items, or, in this case, the grant, which was just over $8,000.”
Eight Home Depot staff members from the Orion Township and Auburn Hills stores volunteered their time assembling picnic tables and benches.
“This is what we love to do. Home Depot has a value wheel and one of the values is giving back. And this falls in line in what we believe in,” said Alanna Hart from Home Depot, who worked on the grant application with Medici and Kinasz.
Hart said that over the years she’s sat down with Medici and Kinasz to find ways to collaborate and help the residents of Oxford through donations and volunteering.
“Last year we started talking about this and about adding things to the community garden and the park in general,” Hart said. “We put our heads together and figured out something we could do for the community and everybody when they come to the park.”
Home Depot also donated some kids’ workshop kits so when kids from Oxford schools visit the community garden they have kits to put together, Hart said.
“It’s one of those full circles that continues to take care of the community, and each other,” Hart said.