Community garden coming to Arcadia

ARCADIA — A community garden will take root in Arcadia this summer. That means there will be more fresh fruit and vegetables while residents strengthen their connections with one another. "Building of the community is the neat part for me," said Ruthie Tong, community coordinator of Arcadia's Heart and Soul team. "If something as simple as a garden can build community and bring people together, that's neat." The garden follows a long line of projects Arcadia Heart and Soul has already organized since the village received a grant from the Findlay-Hancock County Community Foundation about a year ago. The Breyman-Arcadia fireworks display helped the village celebrate Independence Day and remember those in the community who have passed away, and a Christmas tree-lighting event was a highlight in December. "COVID of course stopped all those things," said Tong. "But even before that, I think we had stopped doing a lot of community gatherings so we've been able to revive that." But it's been an additional Building Community through Neighborhood Revitalization Grant for $25,000 from the community foundation that is bringing the shared garden to life. "There's a lot of buzz about it," she said. The project is still in its early stages. The first planning meeting will be held at 5:30 p.m. today in the village hall, 104 S. Gibson St. All community members are invited to attend. "We're excited about it, just planning and all the things that we could do, and helping with food insecurities. Just helping to bring fresh produce I think is a neat thing," Tong said. As part of the Heart and Soul process, the core group of 15-20 members has been talking to a lot of people and digging into what matters most, what they'd like to see and what they love about Arcadia. From those conversations, the idea for the garden began to pop. And when they received the additional grant, the suggestion "really got big fast," said Amie Clouse, a member of Heart and Soul and Arcadia's fiscal officer and council clerk. Tong said some of the money may go into planting fruit trees and flowers and adding some benches and a walking path. The shop class at the high school may also be able to help construct planter boxes. "It's more than just a community garden. It's more like community space that also has a community garden," Clouse said. The team may be able to work with Arcadia Local Schools to use the new greenhouse to grow plants that can be transplanted into the community garden. "The school is also getting a new ag teacher next year," Tong said. "So it would be a good opportunity to build a whole new program and use some of the grant dollars to help the school." "We have a big basket of ideas," added Clouse. "So we'll see what the ideas of the community that we're going to expect to kind of manage it, what they want to see." The women also see opportunities for the garden to lead into classes on cooking, canning and preserving food. "Some people like to grow things. Some of us like to cook things. There's a lot of avenues along with the garden that will branch out," said Clouse. They also see a way to bring people off all ages together. "The younger generation can learn from the older generation that has that wealth of knowledge," said Clouse. "So the community garden is really something that all ages will be involved in and they'll have little stories to tell each other, and it won't just be about gardening, it will be about experiences." The team calls it "building foundational memories," they said. "But we've done our Christmas program. We've done the Fourth of July. And the kiddos are starting to talk about those things and building those foundational memories," said Tong. They have three or four location possibilities for the garden and will be polling the community about their ideas. "We talked about asking everybody what should our Arcadia flower be, and be able to plant some of those flowers around," said Tong. "The garden will being pride to the community." For more information, contact the village hall at 419-894-6315 or send a message through the Facebook page.