PITTSFIELD, Mass. – Cucumbers, tomatoes and flowers are thriving in the middle of downtown Pittsfield.

Thanks in part to Lee Bank, who partnered with Greenagers, to use extra space on their lot for a community garden. 

Greenagers, which helps install gardens as part of their work, installed five garden beds and did the planting to give the neighborhood a green space.

“If there aren’t green spaces, if there are fewer trees, it's proven to be detrimental to residents. So if we intentionally put these green spaces here and have areas where folks can just come and relax, or put their hands in the soil, or just have some shade in the hot summer, all of that is beneficial,” said Greenagers Executive Director Will Conklin.

Three of the garden beds were donated to tenants living above the bank to use.  

Jim and Cheryl Terryberry never thought they would be able to have a garden in the city.

“It’s such an opportunity to interact with the community and to be in an area where we never thought living amongst sidewalks and houses that we would,” Cheryl Terryberry said.

“We thought we’d only be looking at blacktop all the time. This is really nice,” Jim Terryberry said.

Two beds will be used by Volunteers in Medicine for their patients to engage with the community. The food that they plant is collected and donated to their patients as well.

“We all know that working in the dirt and being in nature is really beneficial to one’s mental and physical health, and that is really the goal that we have here, is another way for our patients to feel connected to the earth and be able to have a calm and tranquil space to relax and be together,” said Janell Hostetler, who is a nurse practitioner and site director for ViM.

Since there is some more room in the lot, Lee Bank is hoping to eventually expand and bring in some more people to have a space to garden.