Hewlett-Woodmere Community Garden Learning Center (HWCGLC) was started by Youth Leadership students with a grant from the Hewlett-Woodmere Public Schools Endowment Fund (HWPSEF) and support from the Hewlett-Woodmere Public School District. The HWCGLC has been in production for five seasons.
The Goal of the HWCGLC is to become a model community garden that can demonstrate best sustainable gardening practices to the community and other groups. To that end we work closely with Cornell Cooperative Extension and other gardening organizations to ensure the garden family remains a community of learning and best practices.

                                                            We Need Your Help
A key step to moving from our current state to our desired state will be the addition of a barrier-free access elevated bed that will allow accommodation for some disabilities and encourage greater community use of the HWCGLC. We have a diverse citizenship and seek to make the HWCGLC a meaningful part of our own and surrounding communities
Our desired  state includes a brick walkway beginning at the parking lot and providing all around access to an elevated garden bed.

Please join the HWCGLC by creating and purchasing a custom printed brick to be used in our patio and walkway.  $75.00 memorializes your support for what began as a student-driven effort to create a garden and that has evolved into a community learning and service organization of volunteers.

We seek the support of local businesses, alumni, school clubs, PTA groups, sports teams, individuals, and other groups.

Commemorate a graduation, bar mitzvah, anniversary, or any special event with a garden brick. 

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The garden began with 8 raised beds 30 feet long. 6 of the beds are 4 feet wide and 2 are 6 feet wide.  Garden produce has been used to serve the community in a variety of ways. Much of the produce is distributed through a local soup kitchen, church groups, and Syd Mandelbaum’s Rock and Wrap It up.  Produce from the garden has been provided to the school cafeteria and local restaurants to help promote a zero-miles-to-plate philosophy, encourage home gardening, and to encourage awareness of sustainable practices in the school district and community.
The garden initiative has been active in schools and the community.  Along with support from the HWPSEF, the garden sponsored a fresh food for preschool program during which a local chef prepared child-friendly salads to preschoolers and children learned about the connection between nutrition and gardening.
The HWCGLC has sponsored workshops including tomato-grafting, tree planting, scarecrow building, Dahlia planting and care, herb-drying, tomato canning, and pickle-making among others. These educational experiences take place in the garden and in the homes of gardeners.
A Long Island native species tree grow-out station has nurtured White Swamp Oak, Wild Black Cherry, Tulip Trees, and Red Maple trees.  To date close to 30 of these trees have been planted in a local park to replace trees damaged during Superstorm Sandy.  Many others of our native species trees have been planted by homeowners. We have made arrangements with two other local parks to plant trees in the future.
Over the years, our gardeners have helped us grow to attain our current state.  Our first fundraiser helped us develop expanded above-ground irrigation to new herb beds, a small cornfield, butterfly gardens, the tree grow-out station, and around the perimeter of the garden to allow for watering the trees that have been planted on the grounds.  The bricks were used to construct a 10’x10’ patio work space.