Welcome to the Don Hartley Community Peace Garden page.
Our community garden is located at 16170 Arcadia Ave in Prior Lake, MN. This isn’t an ordinary garden. It was established in 2014 in memory of a very special man, Don Hartley.
While serving his country, Don was captured in December 1944 and held in a POW concentration camp. During his captivity, he was forced to dole out meager amounts of watered-down soup to fellow prisoners, sometimes retrieving it if he’d ladled too much. Such incidents helped shape his future dedication to feeding the hungry.
Following his retirement in 1983, he pursued his true passion, growing produce to help feed the less fortunate. Don grew and delivered more than 60 tons of vegetables and plants for local food shelves in Scott County.
After Don passed, the garden was relocated to its current location where volunteers have continued the mission in honor of Don. Each year, we plant, maintain, and harvest fresh produce that is donated to the CAP agency in Shakopee.
An important anchor in our community garden is the Peace Pole. In 2020 Ryan Boller established this as his Boy Scouts Eagle project.
A Peace Pole is an internationally recognized symbol of the hopes and dreams of the entire human family, standing vigil in silent prayer for peace on earth. Each Peace Pole bears the message May Peace Prevail on Earth in different languages. Our peace pole features the message in English, Spanish, French, German, Russian, Arabid, Hebrew, and Kirnyarwanda. The Peace Pole Project started in Japan in 1955 in response to the bombings in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
In addition to the Peace Pole, Ryan built a pathway in the shape of a Celtic Cross around it and planted a pollinator garden.
Find out more about our garden and group on Facebook at https://bit.ly/DHCpeacegardenFB!