12/04/2024
WARNING: This is a very long post about Tuesday!
This is an annual day to ask for help with critical funding needs and I’m usually there for all of it. But 2024 marks the 10th anniversary of
The CMN Memorial Garden so our team decided to not pull potential funds from other non-profits and instead make this our Giving Thanks Tuesday! Why? Because, over the past decade, this project that began as free grief therapy for our family has expanded into a blessing that has impacted thousands of people.
For 10 years we’ve hosted an onsite, seasonal, weekly Farmer’s Market We’ve partnered with Richland Gro-Op and served over 4,000 people!
For 10 years we’ve hosted our FREE, week-long, summer day camp, STEM-to-STEAM: It’s All in the Garden, complete with swag! We’ve served over 300 kids, ages 5-15. Last year we had 40 kids! And we pay our camp counselors $15 an hour! And, we partner with other non-profits like See Brilliance to hold free “Pop-Up” camps across the city, throughout the year.
For 10 years we’ve hosted FREE community activities including concerts by Zane Harshaw with Blue Spectrum and Columbus Urban Strings;
Pizza & Poetry Night with DJ Wil;
Acupuncture lecture & demos with Dr. Ning (Melissa) Yang from Integra Acupuncture;
FREE garden conferences with nationally recognized speakers like
Jason Brown, the former Baltimore Ravens center who gave up football to become a farmer;
Babson professor Dr. Frederick Douglas Opie, author of “Zora Neale Hurston on Florida Food: Recipes, Remedies & Simple Pleasures”;
Rev. Dr. Heber Brown III, Executive Director, The Black Church Food Security Network; and
Rev. Dr. Renita J Weems, who reminded us of the two things created by God’s hand and not His words. See Genesis 2:8, “The Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there He put the man whom He had formed.”
Thanks to partnerships with the U.S. National Park Service, we’ve hosted FREE field trips, including transportation, lunch, and admission to national parks across Ohio, including
The Charles Young Buffalo Soldiers National Monument;
The Cuyahoga Valley National Park;
The Dayton Aviation Heritage National Historical Park;
The Hopewell Culture National Historical Park;
The Paul Laurence Dunbar House;
The National Afro-American Museum & Cultural Center; and
The National Underground Railroad Freedom Center
Thanks to partnerships, first with Central State University and then with The Ohio State University College of Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences and its launch of the Buckeye Institution-Supported Agriculture (ISA) Project, our capacity to serve expanded. In 2022, we paid 13 families with young children up to $700 each to participate in our Saturday Summer Garden Program.
Our work with the Buckeye ISA, funded by the Kellogg Foundation led to further OSU partnerships with the College of Engineering and student groups like Nourish and Design for 90. Those partnerships allowed us to build multi-bin compost systems, hydroponic systems, a Farmbot, and a solar generator to power them.
We are thankful for the blessings of visitors, volunteers, and generous supporters like the late, great Bill Dawson who retired from Franklin Park Conservatory; Doug Brownfield, who retired from Lowes; Dr. Chris Ratcliff from OSU's College of Engineering and Dr. David Delaine from Florida International University; Scotts Miracle-Gro; the City of Columbus Recreation and Parks Department; The Battelle Foundation Fund, and our host, The Church of Christ of the Apostolic Faith, our family’s church home for 114 years, i.e., six generations.
On a personal level, I am most thankful for my nephews and niece, David, Samuel, Joseph, Benjamin, and Allie who, along with my eldest sons, Charles and Damon, spent the summer of 2014 constructing the garden that my youngest son Evan helped me design, along with the garden logo. I am thankful for my daughter-in-love Tanika, who works so tirelessly (and pleasantly!) as our Executive Director. But most of all, I am thankful for Charles and Damon who have been relentlessly faithful garden co-managers for the last 10 years, entirely pro bono. They used everyone’s gifts to make the vision manifest. Their father would be so pleased.
