NEWBURGH – The kitchen at New Life Manor is overflowing with cucumbers grown in the garden at the edge of the lawn. RECAP employee Felix Colon, who maintains the property, started the garden in 1994 when the Center opened and has maintained it every year since. New Life Manor is a residential treatment facility in Newburgh for men struggling with addiction operated by the Regional Economic Community Action Program. He grows eggplant, beans, tomatoes, collard greens, zucchini, red and yellow peppers, beets, celery, jalapenos, cherry and hot peppers, and lots of cucumbers. There is a section for green beans in the garden as well as in front of the building by the steps.
Felix oversees the 20’ x 30’ garden with help from the facility’s residents who are currently receiving treatment for substance abuse. “A lot of the guys want to help. They put plants in, breaking the ground, digging, pulling weeds, using fertilizer. It’s easy if you keep it up from the beginning. It’s like having a baby, plants are the same thing. Sometimes there’s arguing in the house and you can come outside if you have nothing to do. I can’t stand to stay in the house with nothing to do,” said Felix. “I want the vegetables to be nice and healthy, to see them grow up. Everything I do I give to the people.” When overloaded with a big harvest, Felix makes deliveries to other RECAP programs like the TRUST Center, Head Start, FOCUS Building, and offices at 280 Broadway in Newburgh.
Felix grew up on his family’s 43-acre farm in Morovis, Puerto Rico where they grew coffee, tobacco, bananas, platanos, oranges and avocados. He and his 9 older siblings learned farming from his father and the family raised pigs, cows and horses. “We didn’t have cars and horses were transportation. There were no machines to break the ground so we used a bull and plow,” he said.
At age 16, Felix came alone to the U.S. in 1958. He lived in Union City, New Jersey where he drove a taxi and worked in factories, later moving to Pine Island to work in the onion fields. He became sober at age 46 and entered treatment at what was known as New Life Foundation in Greenville, New York where he was a resident for 18 months before being offered a maintenance job at the facility. “I thought they were crazy offering me the job when they knew where I came from. They said I think you can do it, so I said I’ll take it. If people are sober and they do the right things, it’ll change your life.” There, he operated a larger garden with corn, potatoes, onions and cabbage before RECAP moved the residential facility to the Newburgh location where he set to work building a new garden.
Felix lives in Middletown with his wife and 2 children and credits his good health to vegetables. “I go to bed at 10 and wake up at 5. I’m 77 years old and don’t take a nap,” he said. “I like a plain tomato sandwich with a nice juicy slice. I had two sandwiches before you came here,” he said. “This is a nice house, I’ve been here 29 years. If anyone offered me more money I wouldn’t change it because I love this place. I started living my life when I started living this way.” Felix quit smoking in 1980 after a doctor showed him a pre-cancerous growth in his lungs. “It scared me to death. I used to smoke two packs a day when I was in Union City. I walked out of the doctor’s office and quit,” he explained.
In the kitchen at New Life Manor, Nutrition Advocate Jackie was heating tomato relish on the stove. Made with tomatoes and peppers from the garden, she added parsley, onion, and garlic to the mix which can be used in tacos, mixed with pasta, or added to meatloaf. This summer she used the garden’s harvest to make zucchini bread and cucumber-tomato salad.
“It’s sad to lose people to drugs,” said Felix. “You don’t want to be in jail so people could be in a place like this. It’s a place for people who want to change and live a different life. You have to be ready to make that change so you can help others. You have to be totally honest with yourself. I went through it and I know what it takes.”