In the Brooklyn Centre community of Cleveland, OH, lies Shalom & Tranquility Community Garden, a vibrant, peaceful space used to educate, unify, and improve the wellness of all families, typical and atypical.The predominantly low-income residents of Brooklyn Centre face numerous challenges, including lead exposure from aging housing stock, as well as health and safety risks from the neighborhood’s industrial legacy, which has left behind pockets of contaminated land and deteriorating infrastructure. In 2019 Ebonie Randle was a participant in S.E.E.D.S Women’s Development Program where she met a fellow gardener who not only brought fresh microgreens, but inspired her to start her own community garden. Not realizing how her life and community would change, Randle scoped out a vacant, blighted lot a block from her home and applied to start a garden through the Ohio State University Agricultural Extension Program. Officially designated a nonprofit in 2023, the Garden has been providing food, educational opportunities, respite, and tranquility to her community since 2020.
The Shalom & Tranquility Community Garden is the product of one woman’s determination, supported by a community of volunteers. A mother of two special needs children in a neighborhood with limited exposure to the value of eating home-grown food, Randle understood the garden’s potential. She realized her vision through partnerships with Ohio State University, Kings Partnerships, and support from in-kind donations and the Neighbor Up organization’s Action Grant. “It became imperative that I began to teach myself, and my community, how we can have a better quality of life together,” she said. Today, the site is “staffed” by the Super Garden Kidz, a program that teaches gardening, health and community service to kids ranging from toddlers to young adults. In just a few short years, it’s become a hub for connection and growth, hosting Saturday service days, Garden Grubs community meals, neighborhood meetings, youth literacy initiatives, “Garden Church” worship services, movie nights, and talent shows. “All it takes is continual commitment … and love,” Randle says.