Volunteers Join To Beautify Harrisburg’s Peace Gardens

The Peace Garden is a tranquil garden along the Susquehanna River two blocks north of the Governor’s residence at Maclay Street.  This reflective stretch of fauna and sculptures is the result of nearly 30 years of collaboration between the city of Harrisburg and the Harrisburg-Hershey chapter of the international Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR).
 
PSR has primary responsibility for designing, planting and maintaining the Peace Garden and the city provides routine maintenance like mowing the grass, removing broken limbs, installing benches as is does throughout Riverfront Park.
 
Since 2018 the Rotary Club of Harrisburg leadership and members have made the Garden a major annual project.  2021 has been no exception.  In early May of this year, volunteers from the Physicians for Social Responsibility and the Rotary Club of Harrisburg completed the annual bed cleaning and planting flowers. 
 
The PSR and its amazing long-time leader Dr. Jim Jones, developed and maintain this beautiful garden as a thought-provoking message about world peace.  Michael Lehman was the designer of the Peace Garden and Gwen Lehman have been overseeing the garden for at least 5 years with an "artistic eye."  Ann Marie Judson and the late Dr. John Judson, Past RCH President and District 7390 Governor, have been members of PSR since the late 1980s. 
 
PSR Harrisburg-Hershey is an affiliate of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War.  It is an organization of physicians committed to two issues safeguarding humanity; environmental protection as well as prevention of nuclear war.  Common areas of concern are famine, drought exacerbated by climate change, poor water sources, air and ground contamination. The international group received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1985. 
 
RCH President-elect Matt Staub was on hand to make beauty happen.  Staub sees our Club’s work with the Peace Garden as, “an important demonstration of Rotary International’s People of Action branding campaign.  These community outreach efforts demonstrate what happens when community leaders in Rotary join together.”
 
 
Helping tend and beautify the Garden this year were RCH members Bruce Grossman, David Morrison, Beth Mihmet, Toni Mark and Ann Marie Judson.
One of three sculptures in the park by surgeon and artist Dr. Frederick Franck, a colleague of Albert Schweitzer, “Hiroshima” depicts a vaporized victim of the atomic blast whose only remain was a silhouette shadow on nearby concrete.  This sculpture suggests the indomitable resilience of mankind, even in the wake of annihilation.