43
GROWING for CHANGE: Garden brings out goodness in community
Photo
CAN’T BEET IT: LaToya Hixon, 19, of Youngstown, a member of the Flying High youth organization, checks out beets grown in an East Avondale Avenue garden created by the nonprofit groups Goodness Grows and Flying High.
Photo
CLEAN AND GREEN: The Growing for Change garden on East Avondale Avenue, Youngstown, is where a house once was. Because there were fears of soil contaminants, straw, cardboard and paper were put down to create a cleaner place from which vegetables can grow.
The program focuses on helping people and communities thrive through regenerative agriculture.
By Denise Dick
YOUNGSTOWN — Between the houses on East Avondale Avenue, sunflowers, cherry tomatoes, squash, corn, green beans and beets sprout from bales of straw.
The garden, which runs the depth of the lot, is the work of Goodness Grows in partnership with Flying High, a nonprofit youth organization that focuses on education and leadership. It’s called the Growing for Change garden.
Goodness Grows is a nonprofit formed through Common Ground Church of North Lima. It aims to help people and communities thrive through regenerative agriculture.
“We put straw down to help the soil, and we asked people to donate cardboard and paper,” said LaToya Hixon, 19, a member of Flying High.
The cardboard, paper and straw provide a cleaner place from which vegetables can grow.
A house used to sit on the lot, and there were fears of soil contaminants, explained Meagan Zeune, Goodness Grows program director.
Hixon, who also lives in the neighborhood, says she knew about gardening before the program started, but the precautions to take against contaminated soil were new concepts to her.
The garden is for the neighborhood, Zeune said, and residents come and pick its bounty.
“It’s even become a place for the neighborhood to come and gather,” said Steve Fortenberry, program executive director and church pastor.
The church bought the former Mellinger’s nursery in North Lima and then started the nonprofit. Goodness Grows also is working with the Rescue Mission of the Mahoning Valley to start an urban garden where the mission hopes to build a new facility in the former South Side Park.
Goodness Grows will develop an urban farm on two acres at the site as part of a job-training program with the mission.
A member of the Ohio Agricultural Research and Development Center in Wooster is working with the program to design the farm.
Glen Williams, an East Avondale resident involved in the program, said the garden has become a popular spot in the neighborhood.
“We’re trying to get people involved, to rebuild the community,” Williams said.
Hixon lists cherry tomatoes as her favorite of the garden’s harvest. She’s not a fan of beets.
“She says if we make something with them, she’ll try them though,” said Luke Oyler, Community Grows volunteer.
Hixon, who lives in an apartment, doesn’t have a garden of her own. She hopes to plant one for her mother, however, when they move.
“It will have cherry tomatoes, green tomatoes, some sunflowers and green beans because she loves green beans. Probably some lettuce,” Hixon said.
No beets though, she added.
denise_dick@vindy.com