If you ask Deacon Al Lajoie of the Family Christian Center about his church’s newest community program, he will say, “It’s just a hot dog.” Why is the church offering some of its 13 acres to the public for garden plots? “Just a hot dog.” That’s been the catchphrase of this congregation for almost a month, Lajoie explained. It came from a sermon by the church’s pastor. In it she told of how a man had asked her son for a quarter to buy a hot dog. He gave more than the man had asked–financially, but also in giving his time. Before long he found his response had opened up a more meaningful encounter with the man than he could have foreseen. For members of the Family Christian Center, “Just a hot dog” has come to mean that kind of response: doing simple things for people, but doing them attentively, non-judgmentally and prayerfully.
The program will provide those without their own land, such as apartment or dorm dwellers, an opportunity to grow their own produce. Another deacon, Steve Poitras, calls it a “boot-strap” program, a way to help people help themselves. Poitras oversaw a garden-plot program when he was the facilities director at The Aroostook Medical Center. It was one of several employee benefit programs there at the time, including wood-splitter rentals and co-op food purchases. When Poitras had been stationed in Germany, where land is more limited than in the U.S., he had seen community gardens plotted between sets of train tracks.
Lajoie also saw community gardening at the apartment complex where his parents-in-law lived. “Everybody takes care of their own plots…. But when people are out watering and see yours getting a little dry, they’ll give it a spray.” This is where the Hot Dog principle comes in. It’s not just an opportunity to have cheaper, better food and a more physical lifestyle. “If people start caring for one another in little things,” the Reverend Gail Bellamy explained, “it will eventually change how you do other things. It’ll filtrate into the economy. People will be more apt to buy local.” She hopes it will change how people think about both their lifestyles and one another.
So could UMPI have its own hot dog garden? As Poitras points out, it takes some oversight, someone to prepare the ground and provide the water. Lajoie points to a willingness to sacrifice in a non-showy way. “This is why I’m not a rich person,” he laughed.
To see the need takes a certain mindset. The movement from small and particular tasks to larger questions and concerns is integral to the mission of a university. It’s what makes a university a university rather than a vocational school. In our present state, it may be needful to take cues in these matters from churches, hospitals and community centers. If the lesson is heeded, it will be the meaning that is replicated, not the program.
