Growing Community
by Amy Szabo
Sam, a collie mix, runs out the door as soon as Bonnie Zuchniak opens it to say “hello.” She’s a friendly gray, white and black speckled dog that tracks groundhogs around the barn at the Ode to Joy Center. She does her job well, even chasing down the barnyard cats because they happen to be about the same size as the groundhogs.
Just like Sam, workers are dedicated to the job. The Center, a combination of outdoor gardens and greenhouses at the corner of Seasons and Ravenna roads in Streetsboro, focuses on raising plants and strengthening community.
“I’m interested in getting kids away from computers and out into the natural world,” Lowell Orr said before walking over to talk with Zuchniak, the previous owner of the land the Center sits upon.
He encourages all to come out and view the Center and gardens when it’s in full bloom.
Once summer comes, golden sunflowers will line Ravenna road, waving “hello” as they sway in the breeze. A gravel driveway winds past the newly installed frog pond, surrounded by huge blooming plants.
Sam can be seen running past the pond and up the drive to the hoop house on the left. Shaped like a long tent, clear tarps are spread over arched white poles to form the make-shift greenhouse. The hoop house acts like a greenhouse in the summer, but is left unused in the spring because it isn’t heated.
Darting back across the plotted land to the right, Sam brushes past the waist-high garden tables set up in between the hoop house and the large barn-like structure that houses the Center.
The garden tables are empty now, but in the summer they are full of dirt so handicapped children from Project Green can also do some gardening. The children are either incapable of kneeling on the ground or are unable to be near the ground, so the tables help them to experience the feel of gardening.
Its size, which can accommodate picnics and plant sales, also allows the Project Green children to enjoy indoor gardening when the summer weather is bad.
Finally, Sam comes to a stop next to the glass greenhouse and Zuchniak. The small greenhouse holds new plants, seedlings and soil in the spring when planting first begins. Containing a heating unit and silver solar cloth that drapes over three-quarters of the small building, the greenhouse is perfect for the greens, children, and mulch that will soon fill it in the spring. It is the preparation room for the upcoming planting season.
“They can put their gardens in any way they want. Obviously many of them don’t know what they’re doing,” Lowell said, jokingly. “We’re willing to help them if they want it but if they don’t want it they can do it anyway they want.”
May 21st is the center’s Plant Sale, where the community gathers to buy the young seedlings and plant them in either their garden plot at Ode to Joy or in their own home gardens.
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