RICHMOND

Clad in tie-dye T-shirts, Richmond High School students dug up flower beds, mulched them and cut tangled brush away from buildings at the Richmond Area Food Pantry during Friday’s Day of Caring. They were among other students working on various community projects around town as part of the annual event.

As part of his Eagle Scout project, sophomore Nate Curtis built vegetable beds for the pantry that he and fellow students filled with crushed stone, sod and loam. They also weeded, edged and mulched.

Curtis, 16, is the senior patrol leader of his Boy Scout troop. Since starting in Cub Scouts in first grade, he has now nearly reached the highest rank of Eagle Scout. First, he had to complete a service project that benefits the community.

When Janette Sweem, director of the food pantry, spoke to him about possibly putting in some gardens in on the property, he got the idea to install the plant beds. He met with Sweem to plan the project, got the materials together, and had family and friends help him build the boxes made of cedar wood, he said.

Curtis also thought it would cool to use the school’s Day of Caring to install the boxes to get the community more involved in the food pantry.

“As people are walking by and walking their dogs, they could weed a little bit, they could see the gardens, and it’s another small source of food for Ms. Janette and the food bank,” he said.

The project was eye-opening for Curtis, who discovered how much planning was involved, developing blue prints and lining up the material. Enterprise Farm in Richmond helped him figure out how much material he’d need. As the project manager, he kept track too who did what and how long it took. He also did fundraising.

“I think it’s really useful to learn and in the future you can know how to do these type of things,” Curtis said. “If you are in Boy Scouts and you’re questioning whether or not to become an Eagle, I highly suggest it. It’s highly rewarding.”

Now he’s making a plaque that lists all the people who helped and donated.

“It’s all about helping the community,” Curtis said.

Sweem said local master gardener Jennifer Bourget helped figure out where to put the beds. Sweem knew she wanted a place on the edge of the beds for clients to sit on so they could work in the beds weeding.

“It’s not just for our clients. It’s for our community as well,” Sweem said. “We want to eventually have a nice place you can sit down and play in the dirt.”

Sweem also wanted to have an edible landscape for the pantry, and not only flowers.

Through Day of Caring, “We’ve got a great group of students over here who are just digging in,” she said Friday.

Students also helped unload a delivery of produce Friday, which Sweem said would expose them to some of what goes on in the food pantry. The pantry serves 125 families a month, and is open twice a month.

The food pantry’s annual plant sale will be Saturday, May 27, in the Kennebec Cutters parking lot on Main Street. What vegetables aren’t sold will likely end up in the new vegetable beds.

dmoore@timesrecord.com