Grow With Your Neighbors (GWYN) is a community gardening program that is an outreach project of Five Rivers MetroParks. Five Rivers MetroParks maintains the public parks and trails in Dayton along with the rest of Montgomery County, Ohio. Since 1986, GWYN has been helping urban residents in the county develop and maintain community gardens and green projects, transforming vacant lots into productive spaces.

GWYN staff currently work with about 50 community gardens throughout the county. Most of these are in Dayton and include several youth garden programs. One of these programs, City Beets, is a summer program for youth aged 12 to 15, in which participants grow a garden, learn about nutrition and food systems, and sell produce at the 2nd Street Market in downtown Dayton. The garden is located at Wegerzyn Gardens, a public park in the city. This summer, 19 youths participated in the program.

Other programs include:
• Mountain Top Ministries, a youth employment and mentoring program for low-income teens, has had a youth garden for a number of years

• The Youth Leadership Academy hosted by Our Secret Garden community garden in Dayton is a summer youth employment program for teens aged 12-15. Participants grow a garden, learn about nutrition, and also spend time focusing on math and reading skills

• The Life Enrichment Center, a faith-based nonprofit organization in Dayton, has two raised beds that are tended by about 45 elementary-school children and a dozen older children

• Other youth gardens that GWYN works with are run by the Boys and Girls Club and the YMCA in Trotwood, a neighboring city outside of Dayton. Recently, several probation officers from Montgomery County’s Juvenile Justice program, who are also avid gardeners, have been bringing teens from drug court to Wegerzyn Gardens as part of their probation. The NRPA grant is being used to purchase equipment and supplies, such as composters, seeds, plants, irrigation equipment, and garden tools for these youth gardens

Luci Beachdell, GWYN Manager, has developed several partnerships. She has worked with engineers at the University of Dayton to design a water harvesting structure that is relatively inexpensive to build. The City of Dayton has provided some limited funding, and the Ohio State University Extension Service has conducted nutrition education programs for City Beets participants. The county Public Health Department is developing a youth nutrition survey to be used by youth-serving agencies, and Wright State University Medical School will help with the data collection for youth garden participants.

Ms. Beachdell is excited about the progress being made, in particular, by two of the youth gardens that she works with — the Life Enrichment Center and the YMCA. A large number of children participate on a regular basis at both gardens. For example, about 200 students participate at the YMCA at least once a week in their summer day-camp and after-school program. The YMCA is also integrating families into their gardening activities. There have, however, been challenges. One of the youth gardens lacks a staff person or volunteer with extensive gardening experience. GWYN, with Ms. Beachdell as the only full-time staff and one
part-time staff person, does not have the resources to provide that expertise on a regular basis. Ms. Beachdell stated, “I think that finding those volunteers and connecting them to the gardens in a way that works well for everybody concerned is challenging. So I can ask Master Gardeners or internal volunteers who have experience gardening if anyone is interested in doing that. But then I also have to make sure that they match in terms of personality and excitement level and there has to be some interest on the part of those volunteers to do it in the first place.” Even if experienced and enthusiastic volunteers can be matched to programs, their time has to be coordinated with staff time. This is not always an easy task.