SIOUX CITY | On a rainy day in May, a pastor stepped up to the pulpit to say a little prayer. His words floated over bowed heads for Shepherd’s Garden to be a place of peace and mercy when pressures and demands become too great, that it would provide comfort and rest for those who seek it.
Shouldn’t everyone be able to find refuge?
Tim Jacobs thought so.
He led the initiative to make the new downtown green space into a sensory garden for the visually impaired.
The Sioux City Lions Club funded and developed features within Shepherd’s Garden to appeal to the senses. As visitors move through the park, they’ll find eight signs with large print and braille explaining what they can hear, touch, taste and smell.
The experience includes a running brook with wind chimes, trees with rough textured bark, vegetation to attract song birds and aromatic plants and herbs.
People are also reading…
“I just wanted to enhance it so more people can enjoy it. And that’s what the Lions do. That’s our job,” he said “Whatever we can do to help the visually impaired, we’re going to do that.”
The $52,000 project was partially paid for by a matching grant from Lions Club International, a civic group that Helen Keller challenged to become “knights of the blind in the crusade against darkness.”
Jacobs, a Sioux City Lions Club member and Master Gardener, first saw a sensory garden geared toward the blind three years ago in South Carolina. He brushed his fingertips over the raised dots on a sign and had the vision of bringing something like it to Sioux City.
Shepherd’s Garden was already in the works at the corner of Sixth and Jackson, the former site of an abandoned YWCA. Garry Smith, president of American Pop Corn Company, led fundraising efforts to bring in more than $900,000 for the religious-themed park that includes Calvary crosses with a water feature, Scripture passages on sidewalk pavers and Psalm 23 inscribed on a 2-ton stone.
Jacobs didn’t want to impinge on the project. He only wanted to make it more accessible.
He pitched the idea of designing a garden to delight the senses.
In a collaborative effort with the Shepherd’s Garden Foundation and fellow Master Gardener Jane Hey, they imagined winding walkways lined with benches, potted herbs and water elements.
That dream was realized during a dedication ceremony in May.
There was a lot of back-patting and hand-shaking between congenial greetings while afternoon showers forced part of the ceremony to move inside First Presbyterian Church, where people filled the pews. Speakers, including Jacobs, got up to commend contributors and the community.
All that was missing was the church choir to sing the praises.
Outside, under the shelter of a tree on Sixth Street, Jacobs watched visitors clutching umbrellas stroll along the path.
“This is a great accomplishment not only for me but for the whole community and all these people, all the volunteers that have the same kind of heart. They all want to do something,” he said. “Everybody should come and enjoy it.”
