The Morning Journal (Lorain, OH)
Harvest by example
Elyria’s Dred Scott Garden nurtures community spirit
The beauty of a vegetable garden is an opportunity to reap a beneficial harvest.
At least that’s a message folks at Kanisa House II at 142 Cleveland St., Elyria, hoped to showcase Oct. 10 at a 10th annual Fall Harvest Festival.
About 22 people attended the celebration at the Dred Scott Garden behind Kanisa House, said Minister Gerald Evans, 69, of First Community Interfaith Institute of Ohio, same location.
“What we do now is we make sure we give the tomatoes away to people who need food,” Evans said. “Then we will clean out the land for next year, pull up the plants and rake it.”
Dana Burns, public relations and documentation director for Kanisa House, said the Dred Scot Garden usually grows a variety of tomatoes, herbs, strawberries and nuts. But this year most of the garden is resting to rejuvenate the land. So they planted a patch of about 1,000 tomato plants gathered four per stake.
Many tomatoes still hang on the plants. Burns said harvesters will pick green tomatoes and store them under layers of newspapers to ripen them. Then they will be given away.
Next year the whole backyard will grow tomatoes, peppers, green beans and melons, Burns said.
“We have our tomatillos,” Burns said. “They keep coming up every year by themselves. You don’t have to replant them. Tomatillos have a skin on them. You take the skin off and there’s an oily substance on them. You wash the oily stuff off and eat them.”
Evans said a mission of FCII is to care for those in need.
“We are out in the community, working with the homeless, anger management, impulse control,” Evans said. “We have a newsletter. If anyone would like a copy of our newsletter, they can call 440366-3244. Our next project is we’re going to be talking about
marijuana.
“Personally from the poor people and the African-Americans, I think it’s a slap in the face, because a lot of people got jail time for smoking it or having it on the person,” Evans said. “We’re talking felonies. They go to prison. Then when they come out, they can’t get a job or anything.”
So FCII raises money to help people start businesses to support themselves and their families, he said.
“They say they can make money from (legalizing marijuana),” Evans said. “But it’s a gateway to other drugs, just like alcohol is. It’s been wrong for so many years, and people spend a lot of time in jail. All of a sudden it’s a way for mankind and womankind to make money off of misery, people being poor, people being ignorant.”
On Sunday Evans and Burns
plan a presentation on both sides of proposed marijuana legislation.
“I thought people wanted it for medicinal purposes,” Burns said, “but it’s for recreational, too.”
“It’s an economic tool for the devil,” Evans said. Having marijuana is a nonviolent crime, but the criminal history record destroys people’s lives.
“I’m a capitalist,” Evans said, “but I’m not for capitalism if we make money on the backs of poor folks and destroying people’s lives.”
The ministry, FCII, is a grassroots organization housed in the oldest building in Elyria, Kanisa House, which was part of the Underground Railroad, he said. It accepts donations.
“All of our services are free,” Evans said. “We work hard to be a loving community, to love people. We are trying to build a community that loves people.”