Zucchini, cucumbers and beans are among the produce Gary and Carolyn Jones are growing as part of a Wilmington College effort. With the couple are their children, from left, Cameron, 11, Kendall, 9, and McKenna, 5.
Wilmington College established community gardens to teach those who have lost jobs that they can grow their own food. Families get help from volunteers. Wilmington College establishes plots; others push 'green' businesses
Sunday, July 12, 2009 3:26 AM
By Kathy Lynn Gray
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH
Sunday, July 12, 2009 3:26 AM
By Kathy Lynn Gray
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH
WILMINGTON, Ohio -- By 7 p.m., the garden party was in full swing.
Carolyn Jones was fishing foot-long zucchinis out of her raised plot. Her 9-year-old son, Kendall, was chewing on a tiny hot pepper and fanning his mouth.
A few plots away, Josh Gillis snapped green beans off a leggy plant as his 4-year-old son, Logan, wriggled in the grass.
Nearby, a pan of fried zucchini patties sizzled on a portable stove, serving as a tasty example of how the garden's produce could be cooked.
In a town where the loss of thousands of jobs this year threatens despair, hope is growing in unlikely places.
It's emerging in 20 garden plots that Wilmington College has built and persuaded 20 novice gardeners and their families to nourish. It's sprouting in the Buying Local First effort, a push to keep Wilmington businesses healthy. And it's germinating, slowly, in a plan to make the area a center for "green" business and workers.
The city of 12,000 has become a national poster child for the economic downturn since its major employer -- air-freight company DHL -- announced last summer that it would close its doors by this July, eliminating 8,000 jobs in a county with 42,000 residents. CNN, People magazine and NPR have stopped by to record the aftermath in this Clinton County town 60 miles southwest of Columbus.
Most visible are the gardens, an attempt by the college to show families who need an economic boost that they can save money by growing food. Since May, the families have come together every Tuesday evening to weed, pick whatever's ripe and meet with gardening mentors from the college, including one who cooks up some of the produce.
"I didn't think I could do a garden," said Jones, an eighth-grade teacher whose summer job at DHL has disappeared. Her husband, Gary, has been unemployed since November, so the spinach, beets, string beans, peppers and zucchinis they've harvested have helped feed the couple and their three children.
Gillis, who supports four children and a wife on his salary as a cook, said he plans to start a garden in his own yard next year, now that he knows how.
That's the result that Monte Anderson, the agriculture professor who's advising the gardeners, hoped for.
"There's a sense of sustainability when you know you can grow your own food," Anderson said. The plots, on college land, will double in number next summer, he said.
Less than a mile away, in the heart of downtown, other efforts are being fueled by the energy of two Wilmington High School graduates, Class of 2003, who recently returned home.
"We have to reframe what this community is and change the way Clinton County looks at itself and how the world looks at it," said Mark Rembert, 24. He graduated with an economics degree from Haverford College in Philadelphia and was home for a visit after training for the Peace Corps when he began tossing around ideas with Taylor Stuckert, 23.
Stuckert, a Butler University graduate with a philosophy degree, had returned to Wilmington in September after volunteering with the Peace Corp in Bolivia. He was planning another Peace Corp post -- he'd hoped never to live in Wilmington again -- when he decided he was most needed in his hometown.
"Everybody was yearning for a positive vision for this community," said Rembert. He and Stuckert came up with one: Make Clinton County a breeding ground for environmentally friendly businesses that use renewable resources and use that to spur its economy.
This month, the Wilmington City Council is expected to designate the town a Green Enterprise Zone, giving financial help to encourage energy-efficient improvements, green companies and training for green-industry jobs.
That's part of Rembert and Stuckert's Energize Clinton County effort, which they run out of a small office. They've also applied for millions in federal stimulus money for a home-weatherization project, tried to arrange training for jobs such as solar-panel installation and worked with regional planners to promote the Buying Local campaign.
"The idea is that, although we have huge issues with unemployment, there are people who still have jobs, and we need to support them," Rembert said. That includes the farmer's market, which they're trying to expand, and monthly concerts downtown where businesses can offer specials.
"Our point is to bring all these efforts together," Stuckert said.
There's no silver bullet, they know.
"It feels like we're pushing a very slow, heavy rock up a hill, and we have to push it every day," Rembert said. "But here you have this rural community embracing a very progressive framework for redeveloping itself, and that's an exciting story for other communities."
