A garden grows in Rockville Centre

"That sunflower looks like a smiley face," 4-year-old Haven Thompson cheerfully declared. Dwarfed by the plant, Haven leaned back and took another look at it. "It's really pretty," she added before running off to begin watering a giant eggplant growing in a soil bed.

Every Thursday at 6 p.m., Haven is joined by 15 to 20 other neighborhood children outside the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Center on Centre Avenue for an hour of gardening and nature-related activities. The participants, who range in age from preschool to middle school, learn how to plant, weed, prune and pick their own food directly from the garden, which is completely organic.

"We love coming here," said Kaleyah McFarlne, a curly-haired 3-year-old. Kaleyah and her sister, Aaliyah, 6, were on hand to pick tomatoes from the garden. The girls have been taught which colors to look for —- a vibrant red hue means the vegetable is ripe for picking, although Kaleyah was reminded of that after she picked two green tomatoes.

The concept of a community garden in the West End of Rockville Centre can be credited to residents Carolyn Melillo and Maggie Grey, who together run New Leaf, a neighborhood garden and home design studio on the former site of Schenone's Floral Shop on North Long Beach Road. Melillo and Grey, an energetic duo full of creative ideas and a can-do spirit, teamed up with Denise Festa, another village resident, to plan logistics for creating the garden. Last winter, they contacted the MLK Center and asked for its support in the endeavor. The center's director, Robert A.U. Hogan, was only too happy to help the women out, giving them a small plot of land adjacent to the building, facing Meehan Road.

"This program is bringing the center back to life," Festa proudly reported. "There's a new director," she said of Hogan, "and we're giving him plenty of time and space to get his feet wet. Hopefully, this is the beginning of many years for the garden."

The garden was officially launched on April 25, just in time to celebrate Earth Day. Representatives of the village, which paid for the project, attended the opening celebration.

There has been a great deal of work on the plot in the months since then, with many of the same children appearing each week to get in their hour of gardening. "It's a humbling experience," Melillo said. "Maggie and I have witnessed a lot of personal growth among these kids. They're willing to learn and to nurture, and in turn be nurtured."

Festa agreed. "The amazing thing is that the children, just like the vegetables, are flourishing from this experience," she said. "They take tremendous ownership of 'their garden' [and] they reap the benefits of what it can produce."

While the idea of creating a community garden was originally met with skepticism from some, Grey believes that its success — and the dedication of the children involved — has dispelled any lingering doubts. "The achievements displayed in the garden are great examples of how an inner-city community can claim ownership and pride in something truly theirs," she said.

"Kids, especially young adults, are bored and exhibit bad behavior because there aren't activities for them to do," Grey added. "They're looking for something to get involved in. The garden gives teenagers some basic skills they'll need and, importantly, gives them ownership of the land. We want kids to utilize and loiter in the garden. After all, it's their garden."

And loiter they do. On a recent Thursday, the plot was crowded with youngsters examining vegetables, drinking lemonade and working on a project Grey had set up for the day, making steppingstones for a pathway through the garden. A group of middle school-age kids commandeered a basket of sidewalk chalk, drawing flowers and butterflies. Two wrote, in a colorful scrawl, "Welcome to the Peace Garden."

Grey, busy churning cement for the steppingstones, looked up and smiled. "The garden makes us happy," she declared.

Comments about this story? RVCeditor@liherald.com or (516) 569-4000 ext. 208.