Gordon State College Honors students and other student groups are preparing raised garden beds on the west side of campus to grow a variety of plants and herbs.

The project is designed to create a campus gardening community and hopefully produce enough to be able to meet some needs of some within the neighboring community.

Honors student Julia Whitt's family helped build the raised beds and about 20 students recently gathered to haul dirt and prepare the beds.

"We were happy to do this," Whitt said of her family's involvement. "I think it is a great project that can reach so many people on campus and off."

"The next step is to get dirty and get planting," said Susan Finazzo, Interim Dean of the School of Arts and Sciences and Associate Professor of Biology who, along with David Janssen, professor of English, and are helping to coordinate the activity.

Finazzo came to Gordon from Georgia Perimeter and said a similar project on that campus was very successful.

"The gardens were wonderful for the morale of the campus. People would wander around the beds. Classes would meet by the gardens for art and composition projects," Finazzo said. "It was wonderful to see a bed of sunflowers as you walked from your car to your office. I thought it would be a good idea to replicate the project here."

Finazzo said she would love for this project to be completely student run and have asked students to develop by-laws for how the gardens will be used and to develop standards like whether the gardens will be organic or non-organic.

"Gardens can be so educational in additional to being aesthetically pleasing," Finazzo said.