Behind Utah Tech’s Institute for Continued Learning lies a small community driven by a common goal: staying rooted through conservation and mental wellness.
The Utah Tech University Gardening Club meets every Thursday at 4:30 p.m. around a communal garden, cleaning up and tending to plants of all sorts, including fruits, vegetables, herbs and medicinal plants.
On Feb. 12, the club held a Weeding and Watercolor event where students could watercolor, paint rocks and tend to the garden. The club provided the paint, gloves, tools and even some snacks and drinks.
Upon arrival, attendees put their gloves on and got to work pulling weeds around the garden’s planter boxes.
The Weeding and Watercolor event brought in a few new members who were looking for a way to get involved at Utah Tech. Attendees mentioned the significance of finding a relaxing activity like gardening.
“I feel like working with your hands and being in nature just gives you a nice reset,” said Kendra Lubeck, a senior criminal justice major from Woods Cross. “You’re not watching TV or TikTok, you’re actually doing something productive.”
Throughout the event, attendees took a break to paint stones. After being painted, the stones were left around the garden as decoration. As the event wrapped up, everybody wrote what they did in the garden in a logbook before heading out.
The Weeding and Watercolor event was one step in helping achieve the goal of conservation and mental wellness.
“Gardening’s a great skill and great for mental health,” said Gardening Club Vice President Ava Reall, a senior individualized studies major from Kent, Washington. “I think it’s great for everyone to have a place where they can go hang out and study and be with friends.”
Reall’s comments reflect the Gardening Club’s mission of promoting community. Other club members echoed similar feelings.
“We try to do yoga, fun activities and I feel like it’s just a very therapeutic space for people to hang out,” said the Gardening Club President Afton Orvin, a junior English major from Kemmerer, Wyoming.
The garden has been a work in progress, with projects on the way.
“The main goal for the garden this year is to revamp it,” Orvin said. “Right now we have four skinny beds that are kind of falling apart, and we’re getting help from Wren Hollow, an organization from the community.”
Orvin hopes that more people will find community and mental wellness within the garden.
“Being here and being part of something bigger feels really good,” Orvin said. “There’s so many different people here who aren’t super similar, but we can all bond over this, and I’d love to have more people be a part of that.”
