Mount Olive Cemetery Historical Preservations Society

Even though the seeds have yet to be planted, Geneva Bell is already dreaming of the bountiful harvest a new community garden will bring to her neighborhood.

That imagined harvest includes both leafy greens and a community united in a common goal.

Bell will celebrate that vision when she and other supporters of the project hold a block party for the Brandon Hills Community Heritage Garden this weekend.

Everyone is invited to attend the event to help prepare the garden for planting winter greens.

The garden, at Commerce and Glenn streets, is aimed at helping at-risk youths. Community gardens rely on the collaborative effort of locals to both maintain and reap the benefits of the site. Bell envisions families and youth groups adopting a row in the garden and maintaining that space.

“I have a passion for the youth and having them come together,” Bell said. “My gardening is just a little part of that.”

An idea sprouts

Bell’s garden idea came when she realized today’s youth don’t spend much time outdoors, let alone in a garden. She also saw her neighborhood increasingly full of strangers.

She began searching for a good location for the garden. What she found was an empty lot just up the street from her house.

That lot, which is now empty, is owned by Donnie L. Haskins, a city firefighter. He received the property from Mable Cooke, a local educator for 40 years.

After tearing down the old house that stood on the lot, Haskins had planned on building a new structure there as a business enterprise. However, after Bell contacted Haskins and told him of her vision, he allowed her to use the lot as the garden until the summer of 2008.

“Teaching young children something like this is a great thing, and Mrs. Cooke would have been proud,” Haskins said.

Once she had the site, Bell began rounding up support for the garden.

“It was on my mind and heart to create this to bring families together and to grow food,” she said. “I feel the Lord has put me on this mission.”

Basically stepping out on faith, Bell and her supporters have started the garden process with little money but a lot of volunteer support. They have received some funds from the AmVets Post 78 in Oak Grove, Ky., and are waiting to hear back from several organizations where they applied for grants.

The garden is sponsored by the nonprofit Mount Olive Cemetery Historical Preservation Society, of which Bell is the executive director.

Bell said gardening skills, which previous generations relied on for survival, are being lost.

“Kids don’t know enough about how to survive,” she said. “I learned from my grandmother, who taught me how to plant. Today’s kids don’t know how to do that.”
Bell hopes to instill that knowledge.

“I want to remind them of that heritage,” she said. “It is not just an African-American heritage either. It’s everyone’s heritage. We all used to grow our own food.”

Life lessons

here are about 10,000 community gardens around the nation, according to Karla Kean, University of Tennessee and Tennessee State University/Montgomery County Extension horticulture agent and a co-project leader for the garden.

This will be Clarksville’s first such garden, and Bell and Kean hope it will serve as a pilot program for other neighborhoods.

The simple act of planting a garden can have a huge effect on a neighborhood, Kean said.

“This has a good social and environmental impact,” she said. “Community gardens transform empty lots into green living spaces that can discourage inappropriate action and antisocial behavior in youth.”

Bell will be working with Felicia Kemp-Jefferson of the Mid-Cumberland Community Service Agency and Court Appointed Special Advocates-Start program to bring in some local children.

Kemp-Jefferson is excited about the opportunity for youths to participate.

“It is a change agent,” she said. “The youths will get to be a part of a transformation in the community and see a change in both food and beauty.”

Kemp-Jefferson said the program will also teach the children important lessons.
“They will find that they have different skills,” she said. “And they may even discover something about themselves.”

In addition, she said, they will gain cooperative learning skills.

“You will see the older generation helping and teaching the younger generations,” Kemp-Jefferson said.

It will also bring a neighborhood of strangers to the outdoors and get them mingling with each other.

“People don’t know their neighbors,” Bell said. “People zoom by each other and just wave.

“This will help neighbors start talking to and getting to know each other. That is what a community is all about — reaching beyond your comfort zone and working together.”

Mindy Campbell is a freelance writer for The Leaf-Chronicle. Her editors can be reached at 245-0282 or by e-mail at news@theleafchronicle.com.