AMHERST — A triangle of perennials, small shrubs and grass in front of the North Amherst Library, surrounding the stump of a once-prominent beech tree and situated at the point where three roads meet, has long been a green oasis in the village center.

For much of the past year, though, the garden has been incomplete, with a decorative wooden bench at the center of the horseshoe of flowers and plants absent. Its whereabouts were unknown until late May, when the bench, largely intact but with its top rail missing, was found propped against a barn in the Mill District.

While the District One Neighborhood Association caretakers were grateful the bench was located, they couldn’t put it back in the garden until the top rail, a curved piece of wood that holds in place the bench’s cast iron back, was repaired.

In recent weeks, thanks to University of Massachusetts graduate student Kendrick McDonald, the bench is whole again and fully refurbished, with a fresh coat of paint making it almost new.

“It’s as it originally was,” says Ava Fradkin, who chairs DONA’s Garden Committee.

“It was a neat little project,” McDonald said. “Woodworking is something I’ve enjoyed for a long time. To me, it was a treat as I got to spend a day working on that project.”

But McDonald’s involvement only came after several months of seeking someone to repair the bench, which Fradkin said was returned to her committee after Cinda Jones, the president of W.D. Cowls, discovered the broken bench leaning up against a barn on her property.

The neighborhood association, which had previously made posters and shared photos of the missing bench, then put out appeals for a woodworkers through social media, news flashes and word of mouth. But it wasn’t until a late summer picnic at Mill River Recreation Area, which McDonald’s roommate attended to learn more about the neighborhood they were a part of as residents of North Square Apartments, that he heard Fradkin mention looking for a woodworker. He told her he knew someone with the skills and passed her contact info to McDonald.

McDonald reached out soon, understanding woodworking is becoming somewhat of a lost art. “I told her I’d love to help with the bench project,” McDonald said. “I love the idea of being beneficial to the community.”

McDonald grew up doing woodworking in a shed at his father’s house in Marlblehead and at vocational school and, after earning an undergraduate degree at UMass, made props for the television and movie industry.

With access to the makerspace at UMass, where students can use the various machinery for free, McDonald was ready to tackle the project. “Without the tools and makerspace, I wouldn’t have been able to make it,” he said.

Representatives of the neighborhood association joined McDonald in buying a piece of wood and green paint to match the original color from Cowls Building Supply. The next day McDonald told them the bench was done, Fradkin said.

“It’s an old construction bench — it’s really beautiful,” McDonald said. “The bench has a a story and a life it carries.”

The District One Neighborhood Association formed its own Garden Committee last year, taking over responsibility from Nancy D’Amato, a former Shutesbury resident and member of the Garden Club of Amherst who created the garden in 2009.

“There are people who don’t have other outdoor spaces to enjoy,” D’Amato said in a 2021 interview with the Gazette. “So this garden is important to them.”

While McDonald didn’t ask for any compensation, the neighborhood association provided him a $25 gift certificate for Herrell’s Ice Cream, which over the summer opened a new location in the Mill District.

And Charlotte Cassidy, a library technician at the branch, gave McDonald a handmade card, with a pressed four-leaf clover, offering him thanks.

Cassidy said having the bench back for a few weeks of warm weather this fall has given her the opportunity to eat her lunch al fresco, appreciating the garden in a way the community does.

“It’s been so nice to sit in the garden, under the tree, surrounded by the flowers and plants,” Cassidy said. 

Fradkin said speculation is that the bench spent several months either inside or outside an off-campus student rental, before being dumped outside the barn at the end of the semester. Getting the bench back in place, and repaired by a UMass student, has been a “sweet, happy ending,” she said.

McDonald said he is satisfied that the restored bench gives joy to so many in the area of Amherst where he is living.

“It was really a fantastic project,” McDonald said. “The bench means so much to them.”

Scott Merzbach can be reached at smerzbach@gazettenet.com.