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November 11, 2005
Soon after Executive Dean Goodman arrived on Cook Campus, he was invited to visit the Marigold Project. The marigolds bloomed in profusion, but the future of the Project was in doubt.The Marigold Project was conceived of in 2004 by Teresa Vivar and Anne C. Bellows, project staff of a USDA-funded Green House Project. A team of New Brunswick volunteers and Cook College students carried the project forward. Ralph Coolman, a soil scientist based in the Department of Nutritional Sciences, was the principal investigator. But when Coolman left Cook College, there was no clear agreement with the community volunteers that the project would continue.
The Marigold Project has helped create a cultural draw for the Latino population in New Brunswick. This year, the marigolds were used for a Day of the Dead Celebration on November 1, which was hosted by the New Brunswick Public Library. The celebration, a major holiday in Mexico, commemorates family and friends who have died. They are remembered with parades, picnics and alters that are decorated with marigolds.
The community spirit ignited by the Marigold Project extended beyond the Day of the Dead Celebration. Teresa Vivar and Antonio Paredes, two of the 30 volunteers who worked in the marigold fields on Cook Campus, established an organization this summer that addresses a variety of issues within the New Brunswick Mexican and Latino community. The organization, Lazos America Unida, encourages cultural pride, provides information about health care and immigration concerns, and is leading an initiative to create a formal Sister City relationship between Huajuapan, in the Mexican State of Oaxaca and New Brunswick in New Jersey.
Goodman has formalized an agreement to allow the volunteers, with Lazos as their organizational center, to use the land again next year. He has appointed Ed Durner, associate research professor of plant biology and pathology, as Cook College liaison to the group.
Contact: Michele Hujber
Office of Communications
732-932-7000
