More than 20 years of hard work, patience and dedication is being uprooted in Westport.

The town is planning to relocate the Westport Community Gardens to make way for a multipurpose athletic field as part of the new Long Lots Elementary School construction project.

Gardeners told News 12 having to dig up their plots feels like a funeral.

"I feel like I'm grieving," Margaret Freeman says.

Chairman Louis Weinberg says Westport is losing an essential part of the local ecosystem.

"If the soil could speak, it would say 'we feed the environment, we feed a community, we feed the children, and we create a paradise for this town," Weinberg says. "We are a gem that should not be destroyed."

The town has proposed other locations for the garden to plant new roots, but Weinberg says it’s not that simple.

"I think it would behoove the town to find a flat open space for us," Weinberg says. "If they’re going to take the garden and replace it with a field, then find a field in town and replace it with a garden. It serves the town well."