Before the Congregations of Shaare Shamayim moved out of their building on Verree Road about a year and a half ago, they had a mitzvah garden.
The garden began to provide fresh produce for the congregation’s Cook for a Friend program and to help teach their preschool and Hebrew school children about gardening and tzedakah.
“The challenge was, of course, once the weather got cold, there was not much that you could do,” said Jacques Lurie, Shaare Shamayim’s executive director.
Lurie explained that the congregation was having a conversation with Pennsylvania state Sen. Jimmy Dillon about its Cook for a Friend program and that the goal was to build a greenhouse so that it could grow produce year-round.
“Lo and behold, he said, ‘Hey, you know, there’s state money grants available.’” Lurie said. “We applied for it with his support, and we received a grant to build a greenhouse.”
During that time, Shaare Shamayim was also looking to reduce costs due to changes in demographics and its membership. So when it received the permits and started working on the design for the greenhouse, Lurie said it also received an offer on its building that they couldn’t refuse and moved to rent space at Reform Congregation Keneseth Israel in Elkins Park.
With the greenhouse still being a dream for the congregation, Lurie said it approached Keneseth Israel with the idea. “They were very excited about it.”
The congregation was able to re-attain the permits and began building roughly a year ago. Just before the beginning of winter, Shaare Shamayim, in collaboration with Keneseth Israel, opened the Dot and Moe Davis Greenhouse.
The greenhouse is maintained by volunteers from Shaare Shamayim, Shaare Shamayim preschoolers, Keneseth Israel and TIDE Academy, an Orthodox Jewish day school located in Keneseth Israel.
TIDE students have their own plants in the greenhouse and helped construct raised planter beds to make the greenhouse more accessible.
“We have made it wheelchair accessible, so that the tables are high enough, and there’s a way for people in a wheelchair to get in,” Shaare Shamayim volunteer Susan Anmuth said. “Our ultimate goal is to get whoever wants to be able to come in and participate.”
With the project, Lurie said, has also come challenges.
“We’re in the midst right now. We had to break everything down because we had a bug infestation,” Lurie explained. “So we’ve learned now how to deal with that.”
“It is a learning thing. It’s the first year. We’re just trying to figure out what is best to do and arrange which seeds are going to be the best to grow in there and the time of year that you grow it,” added Anmuth.
While congregants are still learning about the greenhouse, one Shaare Shamayim congregant — a master gardener — has been volunteering to take care of the greenhouse alongside Anmuth.
“You have all these different groups that [are] at KI, and it’s given us a chance to integrate them into a program together,” Lurie said. “And what could be better than to join together to do tzedakah.”
He added that Shaare Shamayim wouldn’t have been able to continue with this project if not for the help of the community. “The synergy of different groups coming together and working on a problem or working on a project is tenfold.”
“The opening in the greenhouse is not only the opening of the greenhouse, but it’s going to be an opening to further collaboration with all the partners we have here at KI and that’s really the strength of what’s going on here,” he added. “It’s just a beautiful collaboration.”