Hofstra students planting community roots with outreach to neighborhood seniors

Driving along Duncan Road in Hempstead Saturday morning it was hard to miss the matching yellow shirts of Hofstra University students working in neighboring gardens.

Plant and Pride is a community outreach day that began at the school in 2017 and has expanded to the yards of more than 40 senior citizens living in the surrounding communities.

“We tell all the neighbors when it’s coming up each year,” said Duncan Road resident Sylvia Piper. “This is a close-knit neighborhood and seeing the plants at each of the houses keeps us unified.”

For Anita Ellis, director of commuting services and community outreach at Hofstra, that sense of unity is what drives the annual event. This year, the 174 student volunteers planted more than 1,000 plants for their appreciative neighbors.

“The goal is to have our students connect to their neighbors, because we are a part of the Hempstead and Uniondale communities,” said Ellis, who organized this year’s program with graduate assistant Kavleen Kaur. “It’s a feel-good event that puts a smile on our senior citizens’ faces.”

The students began the day receiving instructions on the appropriate way to dig and how to water the plants. They then set off with between 12 and 16 plants for each house. Ellis does outreach to civic groups each year to find seniors who could use the help.

For Karissa Hough, a junior, the spring morning reminded her of growing up in Lehighton, Pennsylvania. Each year, her family would drive to Lancaster and fill the bed of their truck with flowers and vegetables to plant at home.

On Saturday, Hough joined four of her Pride teammates from the school's field hockey team before practice to plant 14 yellow and rose pansy pots in the Kennedy Avenue backyard of Geraldine Dudley.

Teammates Gabriela Espinoza, an international student from Argentina, and Camila Valor, who hails from Chile, explained that each Hofstra athletic program has a goal to do a certain amount of community service hours. The field hockey team has also done beach cleanups and hosted youth training clinics to meet the requirement, they said.

Dudley, who purchased her home in 1969, led the group to an area of her garden where she’s had trouble getting plants to thrive and return. This is her first time participating in the program.

“I’m thankful for whatever happens with these plants,” she said. “It will be a blessing.”

Both Dudley and Piper moved to Hempstead from Brooklyn, so they don’t take for granted having the space for flowers to bloom. Piper pointed out the areas of her yard where she’s grown eggplant and tomatoes. She’s counting the days until her roses return in May.

“I love gardening, and they do a good job,” she said of the students. “We really appreciate them.”

As the students left Piper’s home, she shared with them stories from her life. She spoke of how proud she was of her late daughter, when she graduated from Hofstra, and how her own education led to a career in social work that has taken her all over the world.

“Do good,” she told the seven students at her home, who came to Hofstra from as close as Floral Park and as far as Kentucky. “Get your education and go home a better person than when you arrived.”

By Grant Parpan

grant.parpan@newsday.com@GrantParpan

Grant Parpan covers Suffolk County courts and federal courts for Newsday. A Long Island native, he joined Newsday in 2022.