Church of Presentations Community Garden

My name is Luisa LePera-Fox and I am a Team Leader of the Church of the Presentation's Community Garden. I have been at the garden since the beginning, 12 years ago.

Gardening is in my blood. Both my mother and grandmother had a vegetable garden. What is the saying, "the apple doesn't fall far from the tree." In this case, it should be the "tomato doesn't fall far from the plant."

In 1991, I was helping my mother in the garden and suddenly, I had a stroke. Besides the physical disabilities I had, neurologically, I had aphasia: the loss of the ability to speak, read and write. I went through many years of rehabilitation and the last part of it was occupational rehab. I was a practicing attorney, but no more.

The occupational rehab was at the Rusk Institute in NY. Well, I could not find any "job" that I liked. At the RI, they had a horticultural therapy for patients. They believed of the healing power of nature and working in a garden. So, they created a program for me and it was an answer to our prayers. It was a wonderful program that enabled me to enjoy gardening again and to help me help others who wanted to garden but had difficulties because of their physical disabilities. The program helped me almost more than all the rehab I had done! Then, a couple of years later, I took a Master Garden program and in 1998, I received my certification as a Master Gardener from Rutgers Cooperative Extension.

In 2001, I had a beautiful son, Sebastian and I volunteered in his pre-school. I loved it so much that I eventually got my teaching certification for pre-school. I was a teacher for the Ridgewood Montessori School for 19 years. I retired in June 2026.

In 2014, the St. Francis Ministry had an idea of creating a vegetable garden and donating everything to the soup kitchens. I wanted to be a part of that and in 2015, we started the Community Garden. From the start, we have harvested around 13,500 pounds of vegetables all donated to those who are in need.