What it’s All About:

E.D.E.N. stands for Eat, Discover, Educate, and Nurture. It’s a community garden project that we have created for the kids of CCPC (Christian Community Placement Center). CCPC is a non-profit organization that provides proctor/foster homes and counseling for teens and families in crisis. E.D.E.N. is going to benefit these teenagers by providing a horticultural therapeutic atmosphere, a learning environment, and a place where they can meet with their mentors or socialize with peers.

Horticultural therapy is the engagement of a person with plants or gardening to improve their behavior or well-being. Since these teens have been through traumatic events we want to build E.D.E.N. for them so that they can better their behavior and emotional skills. E.D.E.N will also allow the kids a sense of ownership and belonging, when they struggle to belong to society.

We have partnered with Marion-Polk Food Share and Sunnyside Organics as consultants, OSU Extension, and ECHS and SSHS as volunteers. Also most of the food that will be grown in E.D.E.N. will be donated to the Marion-Polk Food Share food bank, the rest will be contributed to the kitchens of the kids and staff of CCPC.

We are not able to achieve all of our goals in just a month or two so we are laying it out into several years. This project will be broken up into four years and for each year we will work on a separate part of E.D.E.N. We have planned that for year one we will focus on the actual garden part, for year two we will work on the keyhole and different outdoor rooms and the greenhouse; For year three we hope to install a greywater system and create ponds in one area, and for the fourth year we’ll finally peace it together with finishing touches.