As the midday heat beats down, special education teacher Ali Wagner assists rambunctious middle schoolers in watering petunias, sunflowers and pumpkin plants.
“Let’s give them some water,” she says, pointing to the flower rows on the left side of the raised bed. “...That one’s still dry.”
It’s year two of the community garden at Jardine STEM and Career Explorations Academy in Planeview, a neighborhood in south Wichita near Pawnee and Hillside.
If the plants survive – which the heat did not allow last year – students can take home some produce. But the biggest benefit is that teachers like Wagner can give kids a place to get their hands dirty.
“They had lots of questions, they loved it,” Wagner said. “It was so nice to show them more hands-on – instead of just on a book, on paper.”
This year, though, one of the galvanizing forces behind the garden is no longer here. Chanucy Kemp, the former president of Planeview’s neighborhood association, passed away in April from cancer. He led the association since at least 2018.
“Chanucy decided everybody else had a community garden, so we decided we were going to make one,” said Shirley Smith, vice president of the neighborhood association. “It was his baby; he built it, but he's not here anymore.”
Throughout his tenure as president, Kemp fought for Planeview to get what it needed to thrive, despite its challenges – a poverty rate double the city of Wichita’s, high crime rates, dilapidated homes. The federal government built the neighborhood as temporary housing for aircraft workers in the 1940s, yet it still stands today.
“You know, Planeview, it has stereotypes,” said Taverna Kemp, Chanucy’s daughter. “But … he did so many community cleanups just to kind of show people that we are the ones who make our neighborhood what it is.”
After her father retired from 25 years in the aircraft industry, Taverna Kemp said he started going to church and getting more involved in the neighborhood. At age 62, Chanucy was studying to become an ordained minister. He advocated for a multitude of ways the city of Wichita could improve Planeview, from fixing the streets to bringing in a splash pad for kids.
Matthew Creasman, the principal of Jardine, said Chanucy even sometimes kept a dumpster at his home for residents to use.
“It would be pretty easy to just be retired from your job and not worry about any of that,” Creasman said. “Whereas, he was always trying to figure out ways to help people.”
But there is one challenge even Chanucy couldn’t solve.
In 2020, the closest grocery store to Planeview closed, cementing the neighborhood as a food desert. Chanucy had fought hard to stop the store from closing.
“I told him, ‘Big brother, some things we can try and save, but some things are kind of out of our control,’ ” said Marc Kemp, Chanucy’s brother.
Then Chanucy floated the idea of a community garden – where produce could be free, grown locally and even help kids learn. He coordinated with the administration at Jardine, where teachers like Wagner had a similar vision.
“This was a way of still giving the kids or people out there the opportunity of some type of food,” Marc Kemp said.
So last spring, Chanucy built the raised beds at Jardine, with teachers bringing in their gardening tools. He planted pumpkin seeds with the students and came by weekly to check in.
Without him here this year, teachers like Wagner are carrying the load on their own – planting more pumpkins, tomatoes and a variety of flowers.
“We have three to four of us that will help try to water it in the summertime and carry on his legacy,” Wagner said.
Chanucy had even bigger dreams, though – a second, larger community garden apart from the middle school.
“He wanted to have space dedicated for people to sit and talk and converse with each other and really connect back to one another in the neighborhood,” said Becca Johnson, the city’s Community Services Representative for Planeview.
Johnson said the city is working to build a new neighborhood resource center in Planeview and plans to include Chanucy’s garden at the site. Mike Hoheisel, the City Council member for District 3, said building spaces for the community to connect with each other in Planeview is an apt way to continue his legacy.
“It doesn’t have to stop just with the garden,” said Taverna Kemp, Chanucy’s daughter. “We can create other areas, picnic areas for the community. … I’m not going to stop in regards to making sure his legacy stays.”
