The first floor of Hamilton County Juvenile Court’s Youth Center in Mount Auburn is austere and utilitarian. Heavy doors lock shut behind you. Mostly blank cinderblock walls lead you down hallways to various parts of the facility.
But when you walk through its cavernous gym and out a side door, you find yourself in a different world entirely.
It’s a sunny July day and vibrant color is spilling out from simple wooden raised beds in the large courtyard.
There are yellow coneflowers, big clumps of glowing purple globe amaranth, and the first blushes of bright red tomatoes peaking out from various shades of green. Bees, butterflies, and even the occasional hummingbird dart through the garden.
‘An experience I’d never had’
The youth center holds about 160 young people who are facing charges so serious the juvenile court has decided diversion or release aren’t options as they await legal proceedings. Because they’re minors, WVXU is only using their initials.
K.B. is one of the young people tending the garden. He’s very invested in it.
“The garden, it gives me a nice experience, being outside, getting fresh air,” he says. “It gives me a state of ecstasy, helps me flow, opens up my mind. It’s an experience I’d never had, being out here in the garden learning about plants, learning how to nurture plants.”
Walking along the garden rows, K.B. points out various plants, including dahlias — one of his favorite flowers.
“There, far to the right,” he says, pointing them out. “The red flowers. Like, purplish red with a mixture of pink. It’s a very vibrant color.”
‘They’ve done a phenomenal job’
Other places in Ohio, including Summit and Lake counties, also have small gardens in their youth centers. And Hamilton County’s Youth Detention Center had a smaller-scale garden prior to the COVID pandemic — one of a number of programs designed to provide recreational and therapeutic benefits for young people held there.
Director Brian Bell says this much larger iteration of the garden is a partnership with the Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden that just started in earnest in May.
Bell says the garden is tended by the youth held here as well as detention center staff and volunteers. The goal is to give the young people something calming and therapeutic to do as they await the outcomes of their cases. And it’s also intended to build skills and interests they can carry into their adult lives.
“It just took off,” Bell says of the garden’s growth. “They’re out here a few days a week planting and pulling weeds and watering. It’s been a great experience for the kids.”
The zoo provided 30 tons of dirt lifted into the courtyard with a large crane. It also provided the initial starts for many of the plants growing here.
Zoo Horticulture Director Steve Foltz says that’s all part of a larger effort to increase the number of people who can access gardens in the city. He says he’s impressed with the young peoples’ new gardening skills.
“They’ve done a phenomenal job,” he says. “To be able to plant something and walk away and know it’s being taken care of — and then to find out that the kids are using it and loving it — that’s what we’re all here for.”
Growth and healing
One of the detention center’s gardeners examines a colorful clump of flowers.
On the far side of the garden near a fence draped with climbing vines another young gardener, C.A., is hard at work watering some tomato plants. For him, the garden is a place to let his guard down — and to watch something he’s invested time in grow.
“I like it because it’s a very relaxing place,” he says. “I come here to get my mind off a lot of stuff. We’re out here for two hours normally, or an hour-and-a-half. We come and water and just care for the plants, really, make sure everything is good.”
C.A. and K.B. are both on the detention center’s youth council — a sort of leadership role among the young people staying here. Detention center staff member Whitney Bingham volunteers in the garden.
She says the garden has been a lot of work. But it’s also been a source of calm for other staff members and for young people who are especially struggling during their time in detention.
“The ones who are very troubled, they find it very relieving and very stabilizing as well,” she says.
That’s vital, volunteer Carly Jones says. She’s a medical student who has been working in the juvenile detention center since 2023. Opportunities to nurture something and to connect with others over a shared interest are big parts of healing from traumas faced by young people who find themselves caught up in the legal system.
Carly Jones has been volunteering at the Hamilton County Youth Detention Center since 2023. She says the center’s garden program provides a therapeutic outlet for young people who have often experienced traumatic events.
“Kids who are incarcerated report feeling isolated and bored and having fewer positive relationships,” she says. “The garden isn’t the whole solution, but it is one solution. I think the opportunities for connection and mutual effort have brought me a lot of effort and I hope they’re bringing the community here a lot of joy.”
‘Something I can teach my kids and family’
Some of the garden’s rewards are immediate. Young people and staff at the detention center are gearing up to harvest tomatoes, eggplants, and other vegetables, which will go into meals there and to local food pantries. And they gather the flowers growing in the garden for bouquets to give family members during visits.
Other benefits could take longer to grow. K.B., the gardener who loves dahlias, says he’s excited to take what he’s learned into the next phases of his life, once his time in the juvenile justice system is over.
“It’s something I can teach my kids and my family, and something I can do myself,” he says. “Agriculture is a beautiful art to learn.”
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