The food garden being developed in a formerly vacant lot east of the Eugene federal courthouse is bringing together some unlikely acquaintances for April planting.
The project’s founder, U.S. District Judge Ann Aiken, has used the garden as a way to give former inmates somewhere to partake in community service and ease their transition from life on the inside to life as members of the community.
Meanwhile, University students, instructors, judges, attorneys, parole officers and others from the community have taken up the offer to participate in the urban gardening experiment, which has been going since mid-March.
Several former inmates say the opportunity to meet people, contribute to the growth of the garden and feel like a part of the community are all reasons that make the community garden and the re-entry program a natural fit.
“It gives me peace of mind. I meet contacts, I get to learn the gardening aspect and everything. I mean, it’s just a beautiful thing for me,” Dwayne Bradly, an ex-inmate, said.
“When I first came over here, I was under the assumption that everybody was like us, you know ex-felons and stuff, criminals and stuff, and didn’t know I was bumping arms with judges and P.O.s and college professors and every member of society. It just blew me away later on in the evening when I found out. I was like, ‘Hey, they’re just ordinary people — people like us.’”
The garden, which sits in a lot one block east of Wayne L. Morse United States Courthouse, off of East 8th Avenue and Coburg Road is coming together, largely thanks to donations from local businesses, volunteer work and University student participation.
University landscape architecture adjunct instructor Lorri Nelson said Saturday’s project brought about 10 University students and a dozen men in the re-entry program together for planting pansies donated by Log House Plants.
Nelson and landscape architecture adjunct assistant professor Ann Bettman teach an advanced plants class on Tuesdays and Thursdays in which students work on the garden.
Nelson said that between her classes, the work of those in the re-entry program and community turnout at the Saturday work sessions, the garden has come a long way in a short time.
“We’ve got lettuce, garlic, onions, kale, broccoli, strawberries, peas, blueberries, tomatoes … and that’s just the beginning,” she said.
Daniel Gibson, another ex-inmate who has been working on the garden since its beginning, said he has developed a real affinity for the project and the people involved.
“It’s so good,” Gibson said. “I’ve been meeting a lot of people. I mean, I just got out in October, so I’ve been mapping out my future, and that’s what this has been doing for me — it’s helping me to get ready for when I get to U of O and everything else.”
Nearly everyone at the community work session Saturday afternoon testified to the success of the collaborative effort, and Bradly and Gibson were just two gardeners who expressed appreciation for the opportunity to work in the garden and give back to
the community.
“All the vegetables and stuff are going to the homeless and food banks, you know,” Bradly said. “I took from the society and the community for so long — this is my opportunity to
give back.”
Another community work session at the federal courthouse garden is scheduled for Saturday at 10 a.m.
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