Letter Back to the City

2/24/09
Hi, Tina,

Thanks so much for looking over the plans, your support, and writing back so quickly. It has been such a pleasure to work with you throughout this process!

These questions are great ones, and we are very prepared to answer them! We have discussed all of them within the garden coordinators group and with community members for the various grants we have applied for. We have separated them by topic/question:

1. meet the terms and conditions of the Policy and the Lease Agreement
a. Absolutely. The practices and procedures laid out in the agreements are actually very much in line with how we would like to see the garden run.

2. How much community acceptance/support
a. To answer this question, we would love to direct the city to our blog in which all of our research on this subject has been published online. The link to graphs of that information is here:
i. http://sycamorehillscommunitygarden.blogspot.com/2008/07/survey-results.html
b. To summarize the information on these graphs:
i. We have 97% support of the garden from the neighborhood
ii. We have 31 households which are very interested in participating. That is approximately 60 people.
iii. We have 4 dedicated garden co-planners in addition to myself as the Curator and Founder.

3. 'group' that will be maintaining
a. The maintenance will be done by the families who choose to participate as part of their agreement to have a raised bed in the garden. Each bed will require one hour of service and clean up of the grounds a month. The agreement will also stipulate the conditions and time frame for putting the garden to bed in the winter. The layout of the garden is also going to help us be as maintenance free as possible by intentional design (i.e. paths covered by weed barrier and then woodchips as opposed to any grassy areas).
b. Any revisions in the maintenance plan will happen after our first year of operation when we reflect on what worked well and what needs to change.
c. We are also going to try to establish community connections to schools, churches, retirement homes, and the OSU Master Gardener group in terms of setting up service programs.

4. funds been identified
a. The grants that we have applied for are also on the blog, including our application information and budgets. That link is:
i. http://sycamorehillscommunitygarden.blogspot.com/2008/12/grants-we-are-going-for.html
ii. They are: Aveeno, Nature Hills Nursery, Fiskars Project Orange Thumb, and The Captain Planet Foundation.
b. We also will apply for the Healthy Sprouts Grant ($200-500) and the Columbus Foundation Growing to Green Grant ($4000).
c. We are also in the process of creating partnerships for local businesses.
i. So far, one lead has been secured: Strader’s Garden Center on 5th Ave will be donating goods.

5. the size
a. The garden design can be scaled down to a size that the city prefers. However, I would like to explain our reasoning for the size that I proposed.
i. The city park that this garden would be in is very large and I feel from my weekly walks and over 30 years of experience in this neighborhood that this would be a good use of only a fraction of the space.
ii. We have over 30 families that are interested in participating in the garden. If each family wants a garden bed for themselves, that will already account for the 20 beds that are planned and we can spill over into the raised beds that will be on the inside of the fence. However, if only a portion of those families want to set up a garden bed in our first year of operation, 20 raised beds will be a good amount for the families and for additional communal and educational beds (like a pizza garden) or service oriented gardens that we can donate to a local food pantry under the Grow a Row for the Hungry program.

6. Water
a. Our only plan for water is water collection barrels at this time. We were really hoping for the tap into the water supply, but we understand that in current economic situation that is not feasible and would hope that in the future this point can be revisited.
b. Because the park is located near a street, we would also provide water for the garden by requesting that community gardeners bring water in jugs with them, and invite helpful neighbors to collect water in their empty water/milk jugs to leave at the garden site.

7. Additional Questions/Developments
a. Would the city advise the SH Community Gardeners to identify themselves as Friends of Sycamore Hills Park? If so, we would like to apply.
i. It would provide us with a 5013c tax exemption code that we could offer to businesses that are interested in donating supplies to the garden, as well as for grant paperwork. Right now, we have been using the Sycamore Hills Resident’s Association tax code, but we would prefer to keep the funds separate.