
When in Rome!
The Civic Garden Center of Greater Cincinnati was so excited last year to introduce a HUB Garden Classes in three of the 70 Community Gardens. OTR People’s Garden happens to be one of the 3. Well, then 2020 happened! Because of Covid-19, in person learning has been put on hold here in Cincinnati, Ohio. Big problem. However every problem is an opportunity! We’ve gone virtual with our learning, and while it isn’t the hugs and handshakes we all love, it is reaching a LOT more people. A large HUB Garden Class last year might have seen ten people participating. We spent a good deal of time strategizing this off season to see how we could increase that attendance. Compare that to this year’s online Fall Garden Planning class last month, which had 135 people attend. 135! Cincinnati garden educators were talking with people from as far away as New Jersey and Alabama. Of course our home town crowd was with us as well.
I have attended meetings for years hearing organizations lament about not having healthy cooking
classes available, all the while knowing we didn’t have the capacity to reach them. Now we can. We can
teach anywhere. That urban gardener with transportation issues that can’t come to us? Well we can
now go to them. We are even strategizing how to turn these classes into another format to make them
accessible to those without broadband. Breakout the CD-Rom or DVD player. What’s the limit of our
reach? Let’s find out. HUB Garden classes now open to absolutely anyone. Because we believe in
Environmental Education for (absolutely) Everyone!

Let’s Grow Our Own Food
Greg Potter
Community Gardens Coordinator
Civic Garden Center of Greater Cincinnati
In 1980, members of the Over-the-Rhine community in Cincinnati, Ohio joined forces with the Civic Garden Center and purchased four vacant lots on East McMicken Avenue which they ultimately transformed into a productive vegetable garden known as the Over-the-Rhine People’s Garden. This historic Over-the-Rhine People’s Garden was the first community garden in Cincinnati and is an excellent example of people coming together to improve a neighborhood.
Beginning in 2014, the Civic Garden Center’s Over-the-Rhine People’s Garden began collaborating with Grow Appalachia and Paul Mitchell the School Cincinnati after the then Admissions Leader and Green Team Leader, Christina Matthews, along with a neighborhood art teacher, Ali Burns, decided to apply for a grant from Grow Appalachia to support the garden. Christina Matthews, personally met with John Paul Dejoria, the CEO of John Paul Mitchell Systems and founder of Grow Appalachia, in Toledo, OH where he agreed to donate $10,000 toward their efforts.
The Over-the-Rhine People’s Garden is Grow Appalachia’s only urban partner site. And although it is located in a neighborhood that continues to see high crime rates, it is viewed by many of the residents as a respite from some of the pressures that exist outside its fences. It is also purported to be the longest continuously active community garden in the country!
Paul Mitchell the School Cincinnati eagerly became involved with the garden as a direct result of the culture established in its schools. The culture of Paul Mitchell’s schools encourages individuals to do more for their community by giving back. The Green Team focus on civic responsibility, recycling etc. Christina Matthews’ vision was to meld the goals of Grow Appalachia, Paul Mitchell Schools and the OTR People’s Garden in an effort to improve the Over-the-Rhine community.
Six years later, the Over-the-Rhine People’s Garden has accomplished more than anyone could have ever imagined—growing approximately 500 to 1,000 pounds of fresh food and flowers per year! More importantly, it provides a space for the community to heal, teach, empower, and feed each other. Just last year the garden offered 17 free garden classes with topics that included cooking, generating income from a small garden plot and building affordable season extensions. Events like these brought 250 new friends and volunteers to the garden in 2019!
Christina Matthews, was so inspired by her years of involvement with Grow Appalachia and the People’s Garden that she resigned from Paul Mitchell Schools in 2016 and launched her own flower-farmer-florist business—The Flower Lady OTR. Now Christina devotes all her time and energy to what she loves—growing a business in conjunction with volunteering her time with Grow Appalachia, The Over-the-Rhine People’s Garden, and in the OTR community. Life is flourishing!
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