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