By Making a Garden, They’re Literally Growing the Good

By Making a Garden, They’re Literally Growing the Good

Albemarle employees volunteer to turn a portion of a Charlotte playground to become a sustainable garden.Although volunteering always yields rewards, creating a garden is special. With nature’s help, the dividends are enduring, bountiful, and enriching for everyone who touches it. Especially kids.

That’s why 11 volunteers from Albemarle spent the other day preparing an unused portion of a Charlotte playground to be a sustainable garden plot and greenhouse site. Middle and high school students will learn to sow, grow, and harvest vegetables and herbs in hydroponic grow systems.

“Thank you for planting seeds in the lives of students of Victory Christian Center School,” Principal Cheryl Riley told volunteers. “You are making an impact.”

The volunteer team, consisting of members of the Albemarle Black Employees CONNECT and Faith CONNECT employee resource groups, included Chris Richardson, Selina Edwards, Dana Lovelace, Trey Fortenberry, Chase Tollison, John Gifford, Jeff Mueller, Kennedy Leslie, Janara Jones, Tatiana Lo, and Helen Valentin Ramos.

Albemarle employees volunteer to turn a portion of a Charlotte playground to become a sustainable garden.The team ripped up old fences, lugged scrap wood, gathered buckets full of litter, and leveled land, setting the stage for the first Victory Church Center School growing season. The day was capped with an Albemarle Foundation grant to the school in support of employee engagement efforts.

Chris Richardson, a global lithium supply chain optimization manager and member of both employee resource groups, noted that the weather had been gloomy and unsettled leading up to the day of labor. That morning, however, the sun burst through the clouds.

“It was kind of meant to be,” he says. “Many hands made light work. When the garden was complete, we still had a few hours left, so we cleaned up the athletic fields. Everything we did was a joyful collaboration, cultivating (as our tagline says), ‘all the elements for a better world.’”

The two employee resource groups operated as one. “We were one unified Albemarle team,” says Trey Fortenberry, an Albemarle environmental manager and member of Faith CONNECT. “We got to know colleagues we’d never met, shared lots of laughter, and had a lot of fun.”

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