Education, feeding the hungry, supporting the community; those are some the motivations and passions DeHavilland “Dee” Morgan, the Master Gardener of the Rock Hill Community Gardens, said in an interview with The Johnsonian. A member of the York County Master Gardeners for 13 years, she said that she enjoys the presence of Winthrop students in the community gardens, and how much they contribute to it.
Her interview is below:
What are your duties and responsibilities?
The master gardener is always there. They schedule people in and out of gardens, help take care of the planting, scheduling the planting, ordering the plants, getting the seeds, etcetera.
We have five or six Winthrop students who are very active in the gardens, and we always get together and plan the activities for the gardens they love. It’s not just me, there’s other people out here. I just happen to be out here every week to schedule the activities and make sure the gardens are in good shape.
How long have you been working in the Community Gardens? How did you get involved?
I’ve been working in the community gardens since its inception back in 2010. I am a member of the Master Gardeners, who were involved in the creation of the çardens, and that’s how I got involved.
What inspired you to work in the Community Gardens?
It was a project of the Master Gardeners, and I’ve always been active with the gardeners from years ago, like all my ancestors. All of them were gardeners, and we’ve always had gardens throughout my life.
So, I thought it would be a good opportunity to get involved in the volunteer hours, but to learn more, be able to teach others, and not only that, but be able to feed the hungry out in Rock Hill.
Most of the vegetables we grow are donated to Project HOPE and some of the churches around town that have the luncheons, feed the hungry at noon. Project HOPE is one of our biggest users of Garden produce.
What were you doing before you became a Master Gardener?
I started my career as a data processing person. When I moved to Rock Hill about 40 years ago, I was a director of data processing for Lowensteins Textile Corporation. Then, Springs brought out Lowenstein’s, then I moved to Lancaster, South Carolina with the Springs Group to work in the management facilities. I worked at Lowenstein’s and Springs for 25 years. Both of those companies are out of business. I retired in 2005, and became a Master Gardener that same year.
What is your main motivation to work at the Community Gardens? What do you want to be your lasting impact?
The biggest impact we’ve had is teaching others how to garden, letting others know that we have a garden and being able to advise them on what vegetables grow in this area of South Carolina. We also teach you how to prepare your soil, how to fertilize, how to feed the vegetables you got, and also, how to prepare them for the table — how to cook them, how to use them, so you don’t grow something you can’t use.
Education is a big part of what the Master Gardeners do around here. The Winthrop students come out — we have groups of students that come out four or five times to a year to put in their volunteer hours of required service. That’s a big part of our community… for people to participate in community service and give back to the community.
What is your hope for the future of the Community Gardens?
Since we have so many students at Winthrop involved with us, we would like to continue to build the Gardens, to teach the student how to grow, harvest the vegetables and use them themselves.
We had an international student from China who was out here two years ago, and he had a plot all by himself. He raised different kinds of vegetables and fed himself out of his garden plot for a year. He was a vegetarian.
We have lots of students who are growing plants out there right now, students who come out and work their own gardens, help others and do other chores around the gardens. They really enjoy it, and it provides them fresh vegetables for whenever they want it.
