Overall Rating Silver
Overall Score 61.45
Liaison Natalie Sobrinski
Submission Date Dec. 23, 2022

STARS v2.2

Muhlenberg College
IN-7: Community Garden

Status Score Responsible Party
Complete 0.50 / 0.50 Kimberly Heiman
Lecturer
Biology
"---" indicates that no data was submitted for this field

A brief description of the institution’s community garden:

The Muhlenberg Community Garden began as a class project in 2008 is open to all Allentown residence and was fostered into existence by a group of dedicated faculty, staff, and students. Since that time the Muhlenberg Community Garden which started out focused on organic vegetable gardening and community building has added a permaculture garden, rare native plant garden, community gathering space, beekeeping, art displays, rainwater capture, and composting to its space. The Muhlenberg Community garden is still in existence today because of student, faculty, and staff leadership and devotion to the below mission and vision
statements.
The Muhlenberg Community Garden promotes sustainable community development for the Muhlenberg
College community and its neighbors through collective ownership, implementation, and maintenance of
the garden. The garden focuses on inquiry-based and inclusive learning, providing a holistic, hands-on
approach to co-curricular and community collaboration, and multi-disciplinary teaching and learning. The
Muhlenberg Community Garden establishes a progressive physical and social space encouraging students,
faculty and staff to live environmentally and socially responsible lives, and become agents of change in
their communities.
Goals:
 Encourage the use of the garden as a gathering and meeting place to develop and sustain an
inclusive community;
 Develop a collective process by which the Muhlenberg community has ownership of the
implementation, progress, and maintenance of the garden;
 Promote sustainable food advocacy and fair food activism by drawing on organic agriculture,
gardening, and permaculture design;
 Teach an inclusive curriculum that promotes cross-disciplinary learning and allows members to
connect garden activities to academic learning and their everyday lives;
 Provide opportunities for intergenerational and cross-cultural learning.


Website URL where information about the community garden is available:
Estimated number of individuals that use the institution’s community garden annually:
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Additional documentation to support the submission:
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Data source(s) and notes about the submission:

The Muhlenberg Community garden does not have an official website but some
information can be found at the following links.
https://www.muhlenberg.edu/offices/sustainability/programs/campusinitiatives
https://www.muhlenberg.edu/news/2021/cultivatingcommunity.html


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