Member Project Spotlight: The Portage Garden Club and Recovery Garden

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by: Jackie Manchester-Kempke

The MMGA’s Communications Team will feature some of our members’ MSU EMG projects in our quarterly newsletters. This article shares one of two projects started by Master Gardener Dick Hewitt who, along with his wife Patt and the Portage Garden Club, in Portage, Michigan, combine teaching science-based gardening practices with philanthropy in their Recovery Garden.

The members of the Portage Garden Club hold an annual event to raise money by selling potted perennials that were shared from their own landscapes, from donations given by commercial operations, and from gardeners who had extra or wanted to change/rehab their own landscapes. If the latter involved a sizable switch, the club would go to the site and help to remove or split the plants and use those plants for the sale. This was a successful strategy but was limited to a one-day sale once a year. Dick was able to get permission to use a utility easement at the back of his and Patt’s property, and the Recovery Garden was born. Now the perennials can stay in one place, waiting to be chosen by gardeners who come to look and donate to the Recovery Garden fund, money which is used to help neighbors and people in Portage.  

Last spring, Portage was thrown into chaos after a tornado hit, followed by a destructive “right wind” (derecho) a short time later that furthered the damage. The Portage Garden Club was able to help a veteran who could not meet his insurance shortfall. Without the funds to pay the deductible, the man would not have been able to get his house repaired. This is why the club works together to sell the plants: To help those in need! So, the Recovery Garden not only takes plants that are unwanted extras (recovering them) but it helps community members “recover” from financial stress. That is amazing!  

Dick and Patt welcome people who drive up to buy plants, walking through their yard down to the Recovery Garden through the Hewitt’s large hosta garden: 1,300 plants, interspersed by daylilies and iris. The Recovery Garden is also approachable from a well-used hiking/biking trail that runs through it. People using the trail see what’s available and may bring a wheelbarrow along the path and shop from there! (Someone even came by an e-bike pulling a small trailer!)  

A nearby nursery school visited the garden from the trail. Dick and Patt taught them not to be afraid of the pollinators buzzing around. A child of new neighbors came into the garden where Patt grows tomatoes exclaiming, “I never knew where tomatoes came from!” Education is happening. Patt and Dick are not the only MSU EMG’s in the

Portage Garden Club, and their collective knowledge has inspired other members to enroll in Foundations in Gardening (FOG). Thank you, Patt and Dick Hewitt for sharing this great project! 

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Ruth Walker

Creative and targeted programs that make an impact are the hallmark of experienced marketing professional Ruth Steele Walker. Focusing on results that improve the bottom line, she accelerates projects from conception to implementation with a mastery of writing, production, placement, budgeting and coordination.

During more than 25 years with Foremost Corporation of America, the nation's leading insurer of manufactured housing and recreational vehicles, Walker consistently produced effective communications programs that resulted in increased net written premium. Her expertise in crisis communications was a vital part of Foremost's exemplary customer service in the wake of hurricanes, floods and earthquakes. Walker specializes in communications targeting the 50+ demographic, with an emphasis in communications for the 65+ segment.

Among other achievements, Walker developed communications for the merger of Foremost and Farmers Insurance, addressing audiences including customers, employees, trade and consumer media. For Foremost's 50th anniversary, she created a celebration program of internal and external promotions, special events, recognition and a 162-page commemorative book.

Earlier in her career, Walker was a newspaper reporter, a TV and radio producer, and worked in national sales and traffic at network TV affiliates. Walker earned a BA in journalism from Michigan State University and an MS in communications from Grand Valley State University.

She and her husband Scott operate a small vineyard in Michigan's Leelanau Peninsula, producing premium vinifera wine grapes. The vineyard has been the largest local supplier for Suttons Bay wine label L. Mawby, recently named one of the world's top producers of sparkling wines.