Volunteer from Augusta brings water to Palermo gardens

Orin Anderson with the water crate he built and installed in his pickup truck. The crate holds about 100 gallons of water, and has a hose fitting.

After learning that the Palermo Community Garden and the Frizzell residence had been cut off from their water supply, Orin Anderson, of Augusta, built a plywood box to haul 100 gallons of water from his house to Palermo. Anderson has been a long time friend of Connie Bellet and Phillip Frizzell, who care for the Community Garden. “We help each other out,” said Anderson. “That’s what friends are for.”

Anderson has a woodworking shop in his home, so he built a crate and sealed it up, and then installed a hose fitting so the water could be fed into Frizzell’s garden hose and drained out by gravity feed from the back of Anderson’s pickup.

Phil Frizzell watering the raised beds in the Palermo Community Garden using gravity feed from Orin’s pickup truck.
Contributed photos

“It takes about an hour or so to water the raised beds in the back garden,” said Frizzell. With the help of frequent rains, the garden beds seem to be thriving. Another friend, who was doing some work for Frizzell, brought over two large rain barrels, which store rooftop runoff in between rainstorms. These are used for flushing the toilets at the Community Center as well as the Frizzell home. The Living Communities Foundation, which runs the Community Center, is presently asking for funds to drill a well on Foundation property. Costs are estimated to be around $10,000, as other wells nearby have been over 400 feet deep. The LCF is a registered nonprofit and donations are tax-deductible.