LICKING COUNTY, Ohio – Thousands of central Ohioans struggle to find where their next meal will come from, but one Licking County organization is hoping to help. Together We Grow has been planting community gardens across Licking County for over a decade.
The community has the chance to pick their food or pick up from one of the local organizations that receive donations. Together We Grow just added its ninth location in the rural outskirts of the county, thanks to a donation made by the Ron and Teri Greenbaum Foundation. Ron Greenbaum saw the toll the pandemic was taking on families in his community and wanted to find a way to help. He got the idea for a community garden after watching a documentary with his wife.
He had just recently acquired land at Tall Timbers and thought it would be a good idea to donate it for a community garden. He reached out to Together We Grow to help get him started, and a year later, they’ve been able to help hundreds of people.
“We started small but this year, my understanding is it’s up to 2,000 pounds of vegetables,” said Ron Greenbaum. “Which to me is nothing short of amazing.”
The grant is just half the work. Working with Together We Grow, Greenbaum also had the opportunity to bring on his own staff and volunteers.
Dei Dill has never been afraid to get their hands dirty. They originally began working on farms as a way to earn money after dropping out of music school. Since then, Dill has worked with food justice organizations all over the country, and says food is what connects us to the rest of humanity.
”It’s very grounding to me, and it makes sense of the world and it also connects me to people,” said Dill, director of the Tall Timbers community garden. “You know there’s nothing better than sitting around the table, sharing food, telling stories, and connecting with the people that you love”.
Unlike the other eight gardens, Tall Timbers is a satellite garden located on the outskirts of Newark, making it a great resource to the rural neighborhoods that were out of reach but also suffered from food insecurity.
“We can take the produce that together we grow and tend and eventually we’ll be able to offer cooking programs to be able to put food by and ideas like that,” said Dill.
While Dill tends and oversees the gardens, Patience Cooper makes sure all the vegetables get picked and weighed. She was introduced to Together We Grow as someone who needed its resources.
“It’s really important to me because it really helped my family at the time,” said Cooper, a volunteer for Together We Grow. “So being a part of this type of project is just, I know how it feels and I want to be able to give back to the community”.
After everything has been rinsed and weighed, Cooper drops them off to shelters and organizations, like the Buckeye Lake and Pataskala LEADs. Shelters don’t always have access to fresh goods due to location and minimal shelf life. Cooper says with this new location, outskirt neighborhoods now have options.
“Canned goods are awesome but you know fresh homegrown food is always a healthier alternative,” said Cooper. “That’s just another approach that we’re excited to take.”
You can find this community garden outside of Tall Timbers. In the coming months, they hope to offer cooking classes and teach community members how to grow their own food at home. Together We Grow hosts its annual fundraising gala in December to raise money for its gardens. You can purchase tickets here.
