Providence Horticulture Program Helps Restore Shoreline

Center’s participants with developmental disabilities to provide 150,000 plants for wetlands restoration project.
Broadneck, MD
Every day, thousands of Broadneck residents drive by the Providence’s horticulture greenhouses sitting along Shore Acres Road right before the College Parkway intersection.

Last week, Providence’s horticulture program provided the first installment of 90,000 grass plants from those greenhouses to Dominion Energy for a wetlands restoration project in Lusby, Md.

Providence, based in Anne Arundel County, provides an array of services and support, including medical supervision and care, psychological assistance, skills training for daily living, vocational training and job placement, as well as retirement services for over 500 local developmentally disabled adults. Along with the horticulture center, there is also the pottery center located off of Church Road by the Senior Center as well as another vocational training building off Ritchie Highway, all in Arnold.

The energy company and Providence’s horticulture program have established a contract enabling the Center’s clients to seed and grow 150,000 plants for the project that is part of Dominion’s shoreline restoration efforts at its Cove Point liquefied natural gas facility in the Chesapeake Bay.

According to a release from the Providence, twenty of their clients were paid (with the assistance of four staff members) to provide the bay grasses after growing the plants using an intricate, all-by-hand process.