HERSHEY, Pa. — Patrons can walk into the Northern Dauphin Public Library on Main Street in Lykens and borrow a tomato.
More precisely, they can check out a packet of seeds. If they follow the instructions that come with one of the little rattling envelopes on a cart near the front entrance or the advice of gardening experts who visit the library regularly to give workshops, the seeds will grow into a tomato plant. Or a cucumber. Or a carrot. Or one of the cornucopia of healthy vegetables the library keeps in circulation.
The idea is visitors will grow their own plants, eat the veggies and then return some of the seeds — though there’s no fine for failing to bring back a handful to replace what they took by a specified due date.
The seed library is the brainchild of librarian Lizzy Baldwin and just a small part of a growing Penn State Health community program that’s the very definition of the word “grassroots.”
Walk through the back doors of the library and you’ll see another. Past a courtyard backdropped by rolling central Pennsylvania countryside are what look like nine metal bathtubs arranged in the shape of the star the library uses in the logo near the front door. Each tub is filled with potting soil. After installing them in April, gardeners from the library and Penn State Health filled each planter with lettuce, broccoli, peppers, cucumbers, lavender, mint, basil and other odds and ends that will leaf out by summer.
Picturesque, definitely. Fun, for sure. But the Lykens library garden and 15 others that Penn State Health has helped plant throughout six counties in central Pennsylvania mean so much more.
“It’s an expansion of food access,” said Ashley Visco, Penn State Health community health director. “There’s so much food insecurity in our communities, and it can’t be solved with a charitable food network alone.”
The health system is aided by a grant from Rite Aid Healthy Futures, a public charity that distributes funds to alleviate health disparities in underserved areas. Penn State Health is using a portion to establish new gardens and expand existing ones in yards behind small town libraries or near Salvation Army campuses in communities like Harrisburg, Steelton and Millersburg.
Oases in a food desert
The Lykens garden’s produce helps supplement supplies at the Upper Dauphin Human Services Center, which is located a few yards away. But it also gives the residents a stake in their access to healthy food by encouraging them to start their own potted-plant gardens.
The gardens play a role in existing efforts to get fruits and vegetables onto the dinner tables of families who need them. In Lykens, residents aren’t immune to the ravages of what community health experts call “food insecurity.” In Dauphin County, 13.5% of respondents to the Six-County Community Health Needs Assessment Report said they were worried about having enough food for their next meal. The assessment is completed every three years by non-profit hospitals to identify key health needs in a defined community. Penn State Health completed its most recent assessment in 2021.