Published April 16, 2019
Establishing Roots
Heads up! This article was published 5 years ago.
The roof at the Daybreak emergency shelter is about to turn green again.
For the seventh year, youth experiencing homelessness will plant rows and rows of vegetables in the downtown Dayton building’s 1,200-square-foot rooftop community garden. Soil tilling will start after Easter, and seeds will drop after the last frost, says Samantha Kirby, a Daybreak employment specialist and one of three staffers who coordinate the garden.
If this year’s harvest is similar to past harvests, the garden will produce hundreds of cherry tomatoes, a couple pounds of strawberries, lots of onions and carrots and a variety of peppers.
Growing veggies on the third story of a building has some unique challenges, Kirby says. Wind gusts can be strong, so the gardeners flip the tomato cages upside down because the broad end makes a better anchor. And patches of wildflowers among the veggies give pollinators a little extra help finding the sky-high plants.
Perhaps the biggest difference between this community garden and others, though, is that the Daybreak garden gives young gardeners good vibes at a time in their lives when those vibes are in short supply. “The garden is a place where I can let go of negative energy and refuel with positive energy,” says one client.
Kirby says this positive energy comes in many forms — from organic conversations that crop up between youth and staff as they care for the plants to the sense of accomplishments clients feel when they grow, harvest and eat their own produce. Says Kirby, “Maybe when they have their own place they can start their own garden and provide for themselves.”
