There’s only one explanation for the excitement at the Salvation Army’s summer day camp: The kids will soon be up to their elbows in dirt.

With a big plea from the camp’s 30 young students, the organization was chosen as one of five nonprofits in the nation to win an “edible good food garden” in a Reader’s Digest contest.

The prize: a 12-by-16-foot greenhouse worth $10,000, which will be installed next month behind the agency’s Yuma Street headquarters.

“It’s been a dream to have a garden, but we haven’t had money in the budget,” said Noelle Dunnan, director of the Red Shield Community Center, which operates summer and after-school programs primarily for children of low-income families.

Children from the center learned about gardening after they grew plants in a light box and donated them to Care and Share Food Bank’s community garden.

Melissa Marts, who coordinates the garden for Care and Share, encouraged Dunnan to enter the contest and acted as a sponsor.

Dunnan applied in March, submitting a 500-word essay that described her vision of creating a community garden that low-income children would plant, tend and harvest to help feed their families. Other needy residents living near the community center, including low-income seniors, clients in an addiction recovery program and ex-prisoners re-entering society, would be invited to lend a hand and share in the bounty.

But she was on vacation in mid-June when notification came that her entry was selected as one of eight national finalists, so she wasn’t around to rally the community to vote online for her submission.

Her essay — and the photo she enclosed of the camp’s children wearing expressions of “puhleeese” — apparently captured the hearts of the magazine’s readers.

“I couldn’t believe people from around the country voted for us and that we won,” Dunnan said. “It was amazing.”

Community gardens have been springing up around town as a way to help feed those in need. Care and Share’s community garden, which started this year, is already yielding fruits and vegetables. Volunteers harvest food Mondays for distribution to local agencies, Marts said.

Pikes Peak Community College also launched an organic community garden this spring at its Centennial Campus. Students in the Culinary Arts Club operate and maintain the garden. The food is being donated to the college’s pantry for needy students, as well as the culinary arts program. As the garden grows, said spokeswoman Nan Heflin, the harvest also will be given to food pantries.

Six-year-old Saraya is eager to do her part to help the new Salvation Army garden.

“I want to plant carrots. I love to eat carrots,” she said.

Photo by