St. Joe's Thanks General Mills for Garden Project
Catholic Charities staff gathered with volunteers from General Mills Aug. 11 in the courtyard garden at St. Joseph’s Home for Children to thank them not only for helping to create the garden but also for their continued partnership with St. Joe’s.
“This is wonderful,” Catholic Charities CEO Fr. John Estrem said of the garden. “This is great for St. Joe’s.”
“I was here before the project started but not during it,” he said, explaining that the garden’s rapid transformation surprised him. “Then I came out here the other day and saw the garden and thought, ‘Wow.’”
Volunteers from General Mills, the residents of St. Joe’s Eldred Hall and two Hennepin County master gardeners turned the unused courtyard, once full of knee-high weeds, into a beautiful area for people to play a game of chess, eat lunch or for parents to spend time with their children.
Twenty-five General Mills volunteers spent 16 hours in early June to complete the project. The company also contributed about $2,000 to pay for the hostas, petunias, inpatients, forget-me-nots, coral bells and other flowers that adorn the garden.
The two Hennepin County master gardeners who helped with the project volunteered their time, providing expertise about the best types of plants and how to make use of the garden’s limited space.
St. Joe’s partnership with General Mills dates back more than four years, said Janell Maruska, an account operations specialist at the company. It recently finished its annual school supply drive, for which employees collected 750 backpacks full of school supplies for children whose parents cannot afford the items they need. The company also raised enough money to buy two graphing calculators and 32 scientific calculators.
“A lot of our employees really value volunteering,” Maruska said. “We definitely appreciate the partnership with St. Joe’s and we’re grateful to be working with them.”
