Ambler Campus, Temple University

Temple University Ambler to hold Harvest Day celebrating the memory of John Paul Endicott

John Paul Endicott had a keen awareness of how the world should work. He understood essential truths that everyone should embrace but not enough actually do.

He knew that people must come together as a community — be it a small village or on a global scale — to reconnect with the natural world and understand our impact on it in order to help the planet survive and thrive for this and future generations. He knew that everyone had a story to tell and everyone could make a difference if they set their mind to it.

“John Paul had no qualms about being himself around others; he had a wonderful sense of humor and a wonderful view on life and how to live it. He didn’t worry about the mindless things people typically worry about in social settings,” said his sister Katie Endicott. “If you enjoyed who he was, he welcomed you into his life wholeheartedly and he did that all around the world.”

From farmland in the Czech Republic and the Netherlands to local grassroots organizations to a little plot of freshly growing vegetables in the Temple University Ambler Campus Community Garden, John Paul dedicated his life to leaving the world a better place than he found it.

“He always thought there was definitely a connection between communities and nature and wanted to do whatever he could to connect the two — that was what he wanted to dedicate his life to. He wanted to get his master’s degree in horticulture and connect horticulture and communities,” said John Paul’s wife, Shannon Ryan. “He wanted people to work together to make it a cleaner, safer world in whatever way they could, whether it was clearing out a vacant lot or creating a donation garden.”

As a husband, father, son, brother, friend, colleague, volunteer, community leader, gardener, activist, and Temple University Ambler horticulture student, he had a passion and dedication to every aspect of his life. Tragically, John Paul left the world well before his time, his life cut short during a vehicle accident in July 2010.

Sunday, September 19, would have been John Paul’s 32nd birthday. On that that day, the Endicott family and Temple University Ambler plan to ensure that John Paul’s memory and his life’s work of bringing communities together for the betterment of the planet are not forgotten.

On September 19, Temple University Ambler will hold a special Harvest Day in the Ambler Campus Community Garden to remember John Paul on his birthday. The event, which is open to anyone interested in celebrating John Paul’s memory and learning how they can be a part of continuing his community efforts, will begin at 3 p.m.

Since their devastating loss, John Paul’s family — sister Katie, brother Daniel, parents Jack and Judy, wife Shannon and little River Ryan-Endicott, just 15-months-old — with the support of Temple University Ambler faculty and staff and an army of dedicated friends have dedicated themselves to continue John Paul’s work in the Ambler Campus Community Garden.

His unceasing work to help others lives on in the vibrant donation garden plot that he began within the Community Garden. The garden, which has been dedicated to his memory, provides fresh vegetables to local organizations such as the Mattie Dixon Community Cupboard in Ambler Borough.

According to John Briley, the September 19 birthday and harvest event reflects everything that John Paul held dear — family, nature, and community.

“For John Paul’s birthday, we wanted to do something that he would appreciate and that would honor his memory and all the work that he has done to help others. We want to let people know what they can do to get involved,” said Briley, one of John Paul’s closest friends for more than 20 years. “John Paul had a very enlightened perspective; he challenged people in a good way. He made you think about why you did the things you did and made you reevaluate what was important. He was a great father, husband, friend, brother, and son — he was truly selfless.”

In addition to harvesting vegetables from the garden for donation, participants on September 19 will be invited to help plant a new garlic crop — John Paul’s favorite crop. The event will include music and refreshments, including beer brewed by Daniel Endicott with hops grown by John Paul and honey from the Ambler Arboretum’s own beehives.

Donors to the John Paul Endicott Memorial Fund — established to ensure continued support of the donation activities in the community garden — will also be recognized. Special commemorative glasses will be available for sale emblazoned with a quote from Claudia Ghandi: “If I had a single flower for every time I think about you I could walk forever in my garden.” Proceeds will support the Memorial Fund.

Shannon said she would like the September 19 event to be a time to “remember John Paul and continue the good work that he started while bringing people together in a natural environment.” It’s a sentiment that John Paul’s family and friends share.

“John Paul was one of the most practical people I’ve ever met. We wanted to do something practical that was also helpful to the environmental, the planet, and to others,” said Briley. “This community garden is a place where his family, where his son, can come and remember all that he did.”

Shannon Ryan met John Paul Endicott in the spring of 1999 while they were both having the experience of their lives taking part in Semester at Sea, a program offered by the Institute for Shipboard Education that provides a rigorous global experience for college students, combining coursework with field assignments and service learning projects all over the world.

“I knew immediately that he was a good person and he made me want to be a better person. He was the only person I’ve ever met that never got on my nerves,” she said with a laugh.

On June 4, 2006, Shannon and John Paul were married; River Ryan-Endicott following on May 23, 2009.

“John Paul never sat down, he was always doing something. Whether it was doing home improvements or creating a newsletter or helping a new co-op or working in the community garden, he never quit,” Shannon said. “We traveled extensively (John Paul had visited more than 30 countries in his lifetime) and the people we met, the cultures we experienced, were such a huge influence on him.”

His global experiences with Semester at Sea — which he returned to as a staff member and volunteer — radically changed how John Paul viewed the world and his purpose and place in it, Shannon said.

“Before he took part in Semester at Sea, he studied film and theater at Penn State. He wanted the Hollywood dream; the fame, his name in lights, the money. That all changed — none of those things were important anymore” she said. “He became much more interested in learning about other people’s stories — he’d visit retirement homes and ask just to spend time to interview people there. He was more interested in getting to know people and what shaped their lives. He wanted to help people around the world, and he did — he became more in tune with the world and with what is truly important.”

Katie said Semester at Sea gave John Paul the opportunity to visit 12 to 15 countries in one semester.

“He came back a completely different person,” she said. “He was 100 percent more aware of what you could do to affect the world around you.”

Briley said he gained a genuine appreciation for the countries that he had visited and the people that he had met.

“Often they were doing so much with so little while here in the states we are often well equipped for anything but squander our resources. It’s why he never intended to stop traveling — he had plans for River to travel around the world by age six,” he said. “He never wanted to get ‘comfortable’ with that kind of lifestyle of excess again. It’s a perspective he brought home to his family and friends, but it’s something he never forced on you. He let you realize things for yourself.”

John Paul and Shannon continued to travel whenever possible, creating unrivaled lifetime memories and enjoying unique cultural experiences often while assisting others. In 2002, Shannon said, they spent time “wwoofing,” working on farms through the Worldwide Opportunities On Organic Farms initiative. In exchange for room and board, they worked on farms outside of the Czech Republic — where John Paul also taught English for a time — and in Apeldoorn in the Netherlands.

At home, he became an English as a Second Language instructor for Sudanese “Lost Boys,” children displaced or orphaned during the Second Sudanese Civil War. He welcomed them into his life beyond the classroom “and got them involved with his family and friends,” Katie said. He also volunteered at Kitty Cottage, a shelter for cats that never euthanizes the animals and, ideally, finds them good homes.

During his last time with Semester at Sea, Briley said, John Paul had the remarkable fortune to meet and be mentored by world renowned South African activist Desmond Tutu, Nobel Peace Prize recipient and Archbishop Emeritus of Cape Town. It was during that time that he learned the philosophy of Ubuntu — “I am because we are.”

“It is a whole philosophy about community which John Paul learned directly from Desmond Tutu,” he said. “I am because we are — I can’t survive without the community. It’s a philosophy that John Paul became very passionate about, a philosophy that I think informed everything he did with his life from thereon out.”

According to Shannon, nature was always an important influence on John Paul throughout his life. John Paul came to Ambler interested in taking courses that would help toward the Horticulture master’s degree he was striving for, she said. He pursued his education will continuing to work full-time as a video production engineer.

“The environment and community consciousness; looking back being at Ambler and supporting the community garden met all of the qualities that John Paul was passionate about,” said Briley.

During his time at Ambler, John Paul was a valued and dedicated student in the Department of Landscape Architecture and Horticulture and contributed greatly to the horticulture program.

“John Paul was an excellent scholar. He was deeply involved with food crops as important to environmental and personal health,” said Department of Landscape Architecture and Horticulture Chair Dr. Mary Myers. “He is greatly missed.”

Eva Monheim, Senior Lecturer in Horticulture at Temple University Ambler, met John Paul in the fall of 2008 when he enrolled in her Fundamentals of Horticulture course. He proved to be an excellent student, she said, and added a great deal to that first class, which were soon followed by Public Horticulture and Woody Plants II.

“I teach a live classroom and he always had great comments and information to share. With the Public Horticulture course, the class was small and we traveled a good many places. Many times I would pick him up at his home so that we could travel together to leave the car for his wife,” she said. “It was the fall of that first year knowing him that he found out that his wife was pregnant with River — he was so excited and was looking forward to being a dad. His enthusiasm for life was contagious and he wanted to share the wonders of the world with his son and all those that he met.”

John Paul also wanted to share the prosperity of gardening with those less fortunate, said Monheim, “and he certainly did when he began his Directed Studies class with Grace (Chapman, Horticulture and Landscape Arboretum Supervisor at Ambler).”

“I had started the community garden in 2009 and I really wanted to make some changes and get a fresh perspective on the garden. John Paul was thrilled to be able to help and he helped me draft a new user agreement with some updated procedures for the garden,” Chapman said. “He also had the great idea of developing committees in which the community gardeners would join as a team to complete group tasks.”

One of the groups, the Food Cupboard Plot Maintenance committee, collectively took care of a garden plot in which all of the produce was donated directly to Mattie Dixon Community Cupboard, said Chapman.

“This was one of John Paul’s great ideas and it has been so successful,” she said. “We have already harvested over 100 pounds of produce from this garden!”

During the Spring 2010 semester, John Paul’s dedication to the campus and the community resulted in continued support for the garden donation plot, which has provided weekly donations to local food banks. He was also instrumental in planning the Ambler Arboretum’s celebration of National Public Gardens Day in May with Chapman despite it being one of the most difficult times in John Paul’s and Shannon’s lives as River had fallen critically ill in February.

“We lived at the hospital from February through May. We were there every day and every night,” Shannon said. “As River was getting better, that’s when John Paul started back with the garden. He organized National Public Gardens Day while we were at the hospital.”

John Paul’s enthusiasm for the community garden was “contagious and he was constantly developing ideas to improve the gardening experience and share it with our local community,” said Chapman.

“It is a wonderful thing to be able to donate produce to those in need and I’m thankful to John Paul for having the passion and initiative to start something like the donation plot on our campus,” she said. “He was the type of person who acted on his ideas when others would only see the road blocks. I will greatly miss John Paul and I think about him every time I tend my garden plot.”

John Paul’s dedication to others will continue at Temple University with support from both his family and the campus community. In his memory, the Endicott and Ryan families have created a memorial fund to continue to support his community garden vision.

“Everyone wanted to help in some way,” Katie said. “Being there at the May event (National Public Gardens Day) and seeing all of the volunteers with Eva, Grace, and John Paul, you could get a real sense of how much they had done there and how much they had put into the Community Garden. We wanted it help it become a more permanent place for his memory.”

The John Paul Endicott Memorial Fund, to date has collected nearly $30,000 in contributions while dozens of people have committed to work, volunteer, and maintain the donation plots within the Ambler Campus Community Garden. John Paul was named “Citizen of the Week” by the Ambler Gazette in August for the work that he started, which will continue for years to come.

Shannon said she wasn’t surprised by the phenomenal outpouring of support the memorial fund and John Paul himself have engendered.

“He touched so many people. He was a really caring person; I think people don’t realize just how caring he was,” she said. “I would love to see the garden at Ambler maintained and grow. I want it to be a place where we can go to remember him and be inspired by everything he was able to do with his life.”

The family continues to tend John Paul’s donation plot and a large vegetable plot in the Community Garden developed by the Food Crops classes, which was completely weeded and reestablished during a special volunteer day event in the gardens in August. Garden works days, according to Katie, are also being planned in October, November, and December.

“After John Paul’s passing, there has been so much support, it’s been incredible. I think it’s a huge testament to the friends and impact that he had,” she said. “I think it is also a reinforcement of the sense of community — and the need for community — to work together, to be together, to make the world a better place.”

For more information on the Temple University Ambler Harvest Day Celebrating John Paul Endicott, contact Grace Chapman at gchapman@temple.edu or Katie Endicott at katieendicott@gmail.com. For more information about the John Paul Endicott Memorial Fund, visit http://jpendicott.com.

CONTACT: James Duffy, 267-468-8108, duffyj@temple.edu release available by e-mail