A community garden dedicated to helping youths at Ryves Youth Center understand sustainability and provide life skills celebrated its ribbon cutting ceremony Friday afternoon.
Terre Haute Mayor Duke Bennett was given the honor of cutting the ceremonial ribbon, surrounded by Ryves kids and members of reTHink as they officially opened the Eden of Ryves garden on Locust Street near the youth center.
Bennett said the garden is a welcome transformation to a poverty-stricken neighborhood and will benefit the entire city.
“This neighborhood continues to transform,” Bennett said. “We see more and more evidence of people caring for people.
“It’s great to see this expansion here and this opportunity to train the kids and grow some food. There will be so many benefits that come with this that greatly outweigh the negatives.”
Shikha Bhattacharyya, president of reTHink Inc. and garden brainchild, said Eden of Ryves is for the children of Terre Haute, a group she says is underprivileged and hit especially hard by poverty.
She said Terre Haute is an exceptional city that features many groups dedicated to fighting hunger and poverty, but sometimes it’s not enough.
Bhattacharyya said even with places like Catholic Charities, Ryves Youth Center and 14th and Chestnut, it takes a monumental effort to feed the 25 percent of Terre Haute residents who live in poverty and the 58 percent of children who receive free or reduced-price lunches at school.
She said after learning those statistics is when she decided to pursue a garden where they could teach children how to grow and prepare their own food.
“We can feed people and kids but unless we teach them to take care of themselves, to grow their food, to make their food, to cook it, clean it, we will be unable to do any permanent change in their lives,” Bhattacharyya said.
“We want to empower kids to take care of themselves so when they grow up they know what to do.”
The garden features six raised flower beds where lettuce, kale, cabbage and other assorted vegetables will be planted along with 10 fruit trees that have been planted in another corner of the garden.
There is also a space where they plan to bring in recyclable materials to transform into art.
Bhattacharyya said that a tertiary goal for the garden is to grow enough produce to take to the farmer’s market and teach children how to generate money from time and labor-intensive work.
Indiana State University, Catholic Charities and reTHink Inc. partnered for the creation of garden with donations from the Wabash Valley Community Foundation and 100+ Women Who Care Vigo County.