Flower garden gets new lease on life outside Mount Carmel Apartments

By Tanya Connor  | The Catholic Free Press

WORCESTER – A young man trying to nurture life in other disabled people and senior citizens recently built a wall near Our Lady of Mount Carmel Church.
Nicholas McNamara wasn’t aiming to keep the demolition crew out; he was trying to keep the flowers in.    
A resident of Our Lady of Mount Carmel Apartments behind the church, he said the wall’s 18-pound stones, sold to him at cost by Camosse Masonry Supply, had been around his flower bed on the lawn of the rectory which is scheduled to be torn down along with the church.
Last week he started moving the garden – approximately 160 stones and a few plants – across the parking lot beside the rectory to a strip of grass where he has two other gardens. This week the plants were in their new home, safely surrounded by the stones.
When Mr. McNamara was 18, a car accident left him legally blind and with a spinal cord injury – T10 paraplegia – the 38-year-old said. He can’t walk, but that doesn’t stop him from getting around and reaching out.
Five years ago he moved into the Our Lady of Mount Carmel Apartments behind the church, where many former members of the parish live, he said. His second year in the high rise he started to plan for a community garden with other residents.
“The church’s role in all that was basically that they gave me permission to build it,” he said. “Father Steve was … always very supportive of me.” Because Msgr. F. Stephen Pedone, the pastor, supported him, Mr. McNamara said, he was able to secure support from management at the apartments. He said he’s not Catholic, but he has family members who are, and he was raised with Christian traditions.
Working with Douglas “Butch” Liscomb and other residents, Mr. McNamara planted and maintained flowers, vegetables and/or herbs on church and apartment building property: along a fence in front of the high rise, on a corner of the rectory lawn, in pots on the wall in front of the rectory, and on the strip of grass where he relocated the rectory garden. The potted plants were moved too. Friends and family members helped with the relocation project.
Life can be depressing for elders and the handicapped, Mr. McNamara said. The gardens give them something to focus on and talk about; they are “like breathing life into an otherwise sterile environment” and a cure for boredom.
“It seems like the project gets better every year,” he said. “More people get involved.”
Monday morning, just before workers came to clear out the inside of the church, Mr. McNamara’s fellow residents and gardeners Kathleen Coffey of St. Peter Parish in Worcester, and Mary Chenaille of Worcester Friends Meeting and their dogs stopped by the garden plot they maintain with another resident, enjoying the produce.