Standing outside my office one beautiful summer’s day last week, I watched as they began digging up the new garden outside the Elkton Courthouse. As I wondered what the end product would look like, a woman approached me. Turns out she is one of the folks who got the project going, Ms. Julia Hodge.
Ms. Hodge began telling me about the process that she and her team had gone through to get the money and the various approvals to see the project come to life. She is currently a bit frustrated because people are under the (erroneous) impression that the garden is funded with taxpayer dollars.
According to Ms. Hodge and an article in the NY Times last year (here), the garden is ENTIRELY funded through private contributions and not public dollars. An organization called TKF Foundation (here) funded most of the project. TKF, according to their website, is “…a private grant-making foundation whose purpose is to create ‘Open Spaces, Sacred Places’. It partners with organizations to create sacred places which increase a sense of community and contribute to a deepening of human connections.”
What TKF didn’t fund, Julia Hodge’s team is making up for in local contributions and in-kind donations.
The project is also an opportunity for some middle ground between jail time and getting off scot-free for some kids. The garden gives judges an option to have children with legal issues work in the garden when they can’t send them to jail but don’t want them to just go home as if they’d done nothing wrong. The really cool thing is that the garden is meant to be a place of meditation and here is a chance for some problem kids to give to the community and contemplate their options if they continue down the same path that brought them to the court system.
So, the next time you drive past our courthouse, please stop in and enjoy the new garden. It serves as a fine example of private initiative for a public purpose.
