Written by Lakewood Christian Service Center Director, Trish Rooney, below is the story about how the "got green?" event scheduled for September 10th came to be. Talk about Community Engagement - we had to share!

LCSC Community Garden and "got green?"

Based on a successful pilot with LEAF in 2009, I approached Dru Siley to see if there might be any city property available for more LCSC client gardeners. He offered us 5,000 sq feet of unused space at Madison Park with the caveat that the garden needed to be an added amenity to the park to tie in with the Park Master Plan and the improvements already made/planned for Madison Park.

In October 2009 LCSC volunteers and students from St. Edward High School prepared the plot, added SweetPeet and left the garden to “winter.”

As the mom of an LHS grad, I approached Dr. Bill Wagner, Principal, to see if there would be any interest in involving students. Wow, was there ever!! Mike Dow and his West Shore Career-Technical District Construction Trades students built the garden fence from re-purposed 70-year-old bleachers the city removed from Madison Park. This was a community service project for the kids. Science teacher Mark Rathge had his horticulture students propagate all the plants from seeds as part of their curriculum. Not only did this support save us a lot of money, but also engaged the students in this community endeavor.

LCSC has not had a fundraising event since 2007 because we have spent our time on our move, revamping our staff and programs and converting all client files into electronic records. We decided the time was right for 2010 and the community garden would be a great location for the event. And got green? was created.

Because we had used re-purposed materials for the fence, for the raised beds (500 linear feet of recycled wood from A Piece of Cleveland, purchased through a grant from OSU Extension) and for the gate (created for us by Paul Hadley of Classic Metals in Bedford), we wanted a celebrity chef who was green and into local food. Who better than Jonathon Sawyer, chef/owner of the Greenhouse Tavern on E. 4th? I approached him through his special events and PR manager, Kyla Gala, and he quickly agreed to not only bring his staff to cook at the event and do a live demo, but also to use produce grown by LCSC clients in our garden. In the “small world” category, Kyla happens to be an LHS grad herself and her parents still live in the historic Birdtown neighborhood! One of our client gardeners is providing heirloom tomatoes that the Greenhouse Tavern chefs are using on their menu!!! And plans are already underway for us to grow additional products for them next year.

West Shore senior culinary arts students will serve as assistants to the Greenhouse Tavern chefs at the September 10th event.

And speaking of green, Great Lakes Brewing Company has generously donated all the beer for the event. Kristine Jackson and KJ Blues will entertain. Kristine has donated back a portion of her performance fee to support LCSC. In keeping with the theme, local artists have created garden benches from 100% repurposed materials to be auctioned at the event.

Mayor Ed FitzGerald and Dr. Bill Wagner are honorary chairs of the event because without the support of the City of Lakewood and Lakewood High School, our community garden would not be possible.

'got green" ticket information here!

Labels: community gardens, Lakewood Christian Service Center, Lakewood High School, LCSC, St. Edward High School