MT. HEALTHY, Ohio – Across the Mt. Healthy community, nearly everyone has a kind word to say about Mary Laymon and the work she’s done at Tikkun Farm.
With its food pantry, job training and after-school programs, it’s striven to be a place of healing in the neighborhood for more than a decade, so when a fire threatened its land, its owner and the nonprofit on Christmas Eve, that same community rallied to ensure Laymon and Tikkun Farm would want for nothing.
Laymon believes the fire started just outside her fireplace, while she was nodding off for the night.
“My husband added an extra log to the fire, swept the hearth and headed upstairs and I just settled up on the couch like I usually do,” she said.
Soon after, she woke to see the fire had spread to kindling and was beginning to grow.
“I jumped up, and I called for my housemates,” she said.
Laymon sorts through donations sent to Tikkun Farm
Laymon said she immediately called 911 and tried to put the fire out, but it was spreading faster than she could get water out of the faucet. At the same time, she said it was already a busy night for the fire department. In the dangerous cold temperatures, they were still out on a call when the report from Tikkun Farm came in.
“Before they arrived, the fire had already blown the window out by the fireplace, the wind had come in and it just made the whole house an inferno,” she said. “It was just the worst night you could imagine to try to fight a fire. You couldn’t get the water to flow, the wind was kicking everything up.”
The fire department wasn’t able to save the home, but Laymon was thankful they kept the blaze from spreading to other parts of the property. The buildings where Tikkun Farm keeps its animals, pantry and runs its programming were safe.
“That’s what’s gonna make it possible for us to just keep moving forward with what we do already while we rebuild this house,” she said.
All of Laymon’s losses were personal. She and her husband lost her home and nearly all of their possessions as did the housemates who lived with them, but they’ve been able to take shelter in the Milk House next door, where Tikkun Farm operates its kitchen and runs its classes.
In the immediate aftermath, Laymon said her biggest concern was getting a warm enough coat to be able to go out and feed her animals. That’s when the community stepped in.
“They showed up like four hours after the fire department left and they just brought bags and bags of clothes,” she said. “At 9, The potato casserole arrived and then like by 10 we had the Christmas tree and bags of bags of clothes. It was just a constant flow that day.”
Within hours, Laymon said she had more than enough warm clothes for her family and housemates and over the next few days her neighbors were offering even more generosity and favors. Someone worked to plow all the ice caked to her driveway, volunteers came by to help around the farm and ask what Laymon needed.
The Free Market will reopen on time despite the fire.
Immediately, she thought of her volunteers. While most of the programming took place in the other buildings, Laymon said volunteers often met in her living room and used the space to organize, now the community has put together a Go Fund Me to help her rent out a temporary space to help that continue.
“All of that is to hold space while we rebuild,” she said.
In the meantime, Laymon said she plans to keep the farm and all its programming running as usual. When the fire broke out, the farm was on a holiday break. It reopened on time on Jan. 3, when volunteers returned to the free market pantry.
“Lots of times, things interrupt our normal rhythms and we pause, like we’re in the middle of a pause right now but the beautiful thing is that it’s not about me,” Laymon said.
