A Place to Grow: by David Hassler, Lynn Gregor

by David Hassler, Lynn Gregor

"One day Reverend Mary Beech came, and we were walking down the street together, and she said, 'Brenda, you see all these wine and whiskey bottles all in between the houses?' It was dirty and I says, 'I just can't live like this, I can't live like this!' So we started cleaning up. We cleaned up our whole neighborhood. Lonnie Burton was our councilman then. He say, 'You know something? You all are really doing something good around here.' ' #Brenda Taylor, Summer Sprout garden leader, Cleveland, Ohio

"The whole idea was to help people feel that they're good. People are good. As one man said, 'I really thought that I was nothing, but when I see people like you . . . come down here, I feel God must have sent you to tell me I'm a good person.' I said, 'That's right. That's the only reason we're here.' So that's how we began, and this has evolved over the years. I didn't know a thing about gardening, you know. I never gardened in my life." #Father Jim O'Donnell, urban gardener, Cleveland, Ohio

Community vegetable gardens#and the hope they bring for changing people's lives#are at the very heart of urban renewal. With seeds, soil, and sweat, inner-city gardeners work steadily, with genuine passion and commitment, to make their neighborhoods better places to live. As one gardener, Father Jim O'Donnell, says, "It's bringing life to a place that for many people was very blighted. . . . People also need something to get outside themselves, and what better way than to get into a garden?"

A PLACE TO GROW: VOICES AND IMAGES OF URBAN GARDENERS shares the gardeners' own stories#what got them started, how their gardens have enriched their lives and nourished their communities, and the ways in which they see their gardens as places of contemplation and prayer.

DAVID HASSLER is the author of Sabishi: Poems from Japan, editor of April Seeds Dreaming of Sky, and coeditor of Learning by Heart: Contemporary American Poetry about School. He works as a poet-in-the-schools for the Ohio Arts Council and is associate artist for the Shaker Heights High School Theater Program, Shaker Heights, Ohio.

LYNN GREGOR is program assistant in the urban gardening program Cultivating Our Community, Ohio State University Extension, Cuyahoga County, Ohio. She assists new groups in starting community gardens, works with juvenile offenders, and conducts workshops. David and Lynn are married and live in Kent, Ohio.

DON SNYDER produces a wide range of photographic images for advertising and industry. A founding member of the Ohio Chapter of the American Society of Media Photographers, he has taught at Lakeland Community College and Cuyahoga Community College. He is a member of the Hampshire Road Community Garden.

120 pp.- 8 x 8-3/4

A Place to Grow: by David Hassler, Lynn Gregor by David Hassler, Lynn Gregor
	Item#		Price
	0829812954	Paperback	18.90
Voices and Images of Urban Gardeners: Community vegetable gardens, and the hope they bring for changing people's lives, are at the very heart of urban renewal. With seeds, soil, and sweat, inner-city gardeners work steadily, with genuine passion and ...

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