Fostering Community Through Local Gardening

(From left to right) Raya Abner, Weiqian Meng, and Rachel Brunot work on an empty patch of soil in the Eastside Community Garden In Athens Ohio on 10/19/2021. The Eastside Community Garden is run by Community food Initiatives (CFI), a non-profit organization that is rooted in fostering community and growing and donating food to the area within Athens county.

Rachel Brunot removes a clove from a head of garlic in order to plant it in the Eastside Community Garden in Athens, Ohio on 10/19/2021. As the fall season nears its end and colder weather approaches, crops that can withstand colder weather, like garlic, will be grown before the garden is closed to the community. Over the next few weeks, this garlic plant will be maintained and eventually harvested where it will most likely be donated to the community, or used as a part of a cooking workshop.

Raya Abner and Ravi Harley work in the Southside Community Garden in Athens, Ohio on 10/18/2021. There is much work to be done in the gardens at this time of the year, the gardens must be prepared for the winter season and the current crops that cannot thrive in the cold must be harvested. After the current crops are harvested, new crops that can thrive in the cold will be planted to keep the soil healthy over the winter, and the garden will be "put to bed".

Ben Zilf is an Athens City Councilor, a manager at the popular café "Donkey coffee", and an Eastside Community Garden regular. Here he tends to his plants at the garden in Athens, Ohio on 10/19/2021. One of the main objectives of CFI and their gardens is to provide the community with a viable way to grow their own food. If you were to show up to any of the gardens during one of their work parties, you'd be likely to find a few locals gardening plants in their own designated plots, for their own kitchens.

While some of the garden's space is designated for community members, other plots are maintained by a group of CFI volunteers and AmeriCorps members, these plots are the ones where food will be harvested to be donated to the community. Here a volunteer for CFI digs up a plot of soil in the Southside Community Garden in Athens, Ohio on 11/1/2021, in order to prepare it to be planted on.

Raya Abner is a Cincinnati native working with AmeriCorps, an organization that aims to help non-profit organizations thrive throughout the U.S. Raya works hard for the community gardens, you can find her at the majority of the work parties that CFI holds, as well as at donation stations and local workshops. Raya often puts in over 40-hour workweeks to keep the gardens maintained, especially during this busy time of the year. This portrait was taken at the Southside Community Garden in Athens, Ohio on 11/1/2021.

Recently harvested sweet potatoes are handed off in order to be put away in the Southside Community Garden in Athens, Ohio on 10/18/2021. These sweet potatoes will later make their way into one of CFI's donation stations that occur throughout Athens County in various cities and towns such as Nelsonville, Coolville, Glouster, and more.

Ravi Harley hands pumpkins and other local produce off to Raya Abner in the back of the "veggie van", a portable donation station that visits multiple towns in the Athens county area, as of 10/27/2021, the van was in Coolville, Ohio.

The veggie van, a portable donation station run by CFI, sits to the side of Main street, just in front of the public library, in Coolville, Ohio on 10/27/2021. At the veggie van, local produce harvested at any of the CFI ran gardens is sold to members of the community. The produce is technically free, with the only price being a suggested donation, and is being sold to help anyone in the community who might struggle to find affordable fresh produce.

Ravi Harley and Raya Abner share a laugh while running the Coolville veggie van in Coolville, Ohio on 10/27/2021. The CFI volunteers duties don't end at the garden, they also set up donation stations and interact with members of the Athens county community quite often. During my visit to the Coolville veggie van, I was introduced to a couple of community members who were already familiar with the CFI volunteers and had formed relationships just from seeing the CFI volunteers around every week.

Three community members, Roland Garcia (left), Lisa Causey (middle) and Mike Kubisek (right) buy produce from the veggie van in Coolville, Ohio on 10/27/2021. Mike was previously a volunteer with AmeriCorps for some time and says "The biggest problem with AmeriCorps and ComCorps is that in two or three years AmeriCorps leaves and the people affected are still here. There's a systematic problem here. Keep doing what you're doing though, some day we'll make a change".