Urban Greens to Host Harvest Party

ZANESVILLE, OH -The Urbans Greens Program is getting ready to host a Harvest Party to wrap up the season.

Beginning back in May, Urban Greens kicked off their volunteer initiative called the 2024 Garden Olympics.

Betsy Rosser, an Urban Agriculture and Education Specialist, said between the 6 community gardens and over 200 volunteers, they were able to donate over 13,000lbs of produce to local food pantries.

She says one group stood out in particular by putting in around 400 hours worth of volunteering.

“Cairn Recovery Resources had a group of men coming out, about every other week, all throughout the season,” Rosser said. “It was usually between 10 and 12 men who came out at a time every other Thursday. A couple of weeks ago we had 62 of them out here, all at one time. These men, collectively, have put in close to 400 hours, volunteering to help grow food for their community.”

Delquante Boone, a recovering addict, said this was a great experience for him because he was able to give back to the community while also helping himself in his recovery journey.

“It gives me a chance to give back to people that have done things for me,” Boone said. “But I obviously can’t go and find them and do stuff for them, so this is a way for me to help me in my recovery and help give back to people who have done stuff for me.”

Randa Harrop, a Counselor with Cairn, said she can see how this experience of working with the garden helped a lot of the men in her care.

“We kind of looked at it as growing a garden and planting the seeds but I really think that we kind of planted the seeds in their recovery and the garden helped them grow too,” Harrop said. “It’s very therapeutic to come out here and a lot of people, at first, were like, ‘I don’t want to do this.’ but then they came out and everybody was laughing and having fun by the end of it.”

The Harvest Party is only for those who volunteered to help with any of the community gardens from May until October of this year.

The party will take place on Saturday, Oct. 26th from 4 to 6PM at the Marshall Greens Garden.