CGC Updates: Summer 2022
After two years of pandemic restrictions, this summer has finally felt like something approaching normal here at the CGC. Here’s a bird’s-eye view of what we’ve been up to:
Green Girls in STEM
We kicked off the summer with our week-long Green Girls in STEM summer camp. This group of young women from schools around Cincinnati planted tomatoes in our onsite veggie garden, made pollinator seed balls, visited the Cincinnati Zoo, met with the WAVE Foundation and the True Body Project, and more. We love seeing more women in STEM!
Family Fun Day
In June, we held our first-ever Family Fun Day! This free event featured family-friendly activities with the CGC and partner organizations, music, food, freebies, and even the UC Smoothie Bike. Our goal was to celebrate Juneteenth and our 80th anniversary with our community.
Be.Well
This summer, we joined with the Be.Well program at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital to give children with disabilities the opportunity to be active outdoors. Ellie, our Youth Education Coordinator, and Kaela, our Program Associate, helped participants plant their own garden bed, learn to identify trees by their leaves, discover the important relationship between plants and pollinators, see how composting helps keep waste out of the landfill, and join in on the Family Fun Day activities!
Hub Garden Classes
This summer, our Community Gardens Coordinator, Kymisha, has been teaching free classes in community gardens around Cincinnati—44 of them by the end of September! She’s already covered basic gardening, companion planting, pollinators, container gardening, and trellising. August’s focus is composting, and in September, she’ll be teaching how to make a profit from garden crops. There are still garden-to-plate cooking demos on the schedule as well! Learn more and register here.
Dear Garden Art Exhibit
To commemorate our 80th anniversary, our Administrative and Facilities Manager, Michelle, had the idea of collaborating with student artists to create an exhibit on our grounds. The result was Dear Garden, a collection of work by DAAP Fine Arts students centered on the themes of sustainability, community, and gardening. We had an opening on July 26, where the artists were able to formally share their work with our community. Read more about the project here.
Summer Sprouts
Our Youth Education Coordinator, Ellie, and our summer interns, Samantha and Julia, ran our Summer Sprouts program for two kids’ camps this year. The participants got to harvest from the garden during each session, then use their bounty to make things like ranch dip, berry smoothies, carrot and zucchini fries, and even stovetop pizza. Julia and Samantha created a recipe book for the kids to take home on the last day so that they can share what they learned with their families.
ReRooted
Have you met our newly hatched native plant propagation program, ReRooted? We’ve been hinting at it, and it’s still a work in progress, but we’re working hard to get it off the ground. In fact, the inventory for our Fall Native Plant Sale (happening now!) is made up of natives grown from seed right here on CGC property! If growing native plants and trees interests you, keep an eye out going forward for opportunities to get involved.
New Staff Members
We’ve added some new faces to the CGC over the past few months! We introduced Kymisha, our Community Gardens Coordinator, in our spring newsletter. Since then, Kaela (Program Associate), Erin (Development & Marketing Associate), and Mary (Sustainability & Ecology Education Coordinator) have joined the team as well. You can meet our new team members on our Staff page.
