Johnny’s Sommer mit Martin Luther Kirche

As the summer wraps up and school starts to roll in, my time as a summer student at Martin Luther Church also comes to an end. It was a long journey filled with mundane, fun, and hardworking tasks. It started with enjoying the summer, examining Alfred’s large flower garden outside of the front of the church. Many a kind of beautiful flowers. The rich green and substantial hicks yew, as well as the richly red Geraniums and purple pansies. It was a great sight to behold and as the summer went by. The flowers bloomed giving nice colour in contrast to the front church’s red brick walls.

After the flower examination, we got to grow our community garden in the raised beds. My family has always grown lots of summer vegetables every year, so this was nothing unfamiliar. Yet, I still learned a lot thanks to our Gardening Guru Catherine. Learning about plants pairings as well as proper mulching and fertilizing techniques. We also got to visit her garden beside the Daily Bread Food Bank on new Toronto street. It was massive and the variety was huge. Pollinator plants, berry trees and plants, apple trees, raspberries, strawberries, chillies galore. It felt like they had everything they possibly could have grown in this Ontario climate. Thank you Catherine for all the help and I hope you get another great harvest come next year.

How can I talk about a summer wrap-up without mentioning Beverages and Blessings? Beverages and Blessings was birthed from the idea of summer being hot, originally from Bowls and Blessings. This time it was focused on keeping people hydrated and cool during the summer. We had started with tasty pastries from Paris Bakery and freshly brewed Teas picked and dried from the raised beds. It evolved into the same pastries but with even more treats! Ice cream in huge pints, Kit-kat ice cream bars, Freezies. There was also the occasional soups and sandwiches from community members. Of course, we also had plenty of clothing on the clothing rack for those who may have needed it too. I thank everyone in the community for being so generous and helping Beverages and Blessings to keep going, both with the food and the clothing, thank you.

Dan-day was an amazing experience. I got to do many things I never thought I would do as a student in university. From power washing and cleaning the huge window outside the front of the church, to cutting through bushes that lined the side of the church. Laying down breaks and levelling the ground in front of the parsonage, to flinging brick over the side of a (small) cliff in the recycling yard. It was quite the adventure and it all culminated in the big project I was tasked with: Our Community Pantry. I couldn’t have done any of it without the help of Dan, I’m very grateful for everything he helped me with.

I also want to thank Marlena for being the best helper around, Iris for being the voice of reason when I get ahead of myself, Adam for keeping the hustle going and the brains for the initial Grow Some Good project, Mona from the Web Team for helping with our posts, and Maliha for helping me throughout the summer. Hopefully, there will be someone who will take up my torch as I go back to being busy in school and my summer term ends. Thank you to anyone else I may have interacted with throughout the term and thank you to the church for letting me help. That’s all for now folks.

– Johnny, September 24, 2021