Loretta Powell of Little Detroit Community Garden recently hosted a day of planting and learning on Detroit’s east side. (Courtesy photo)
After almost a month of delays due to weather and schedules, Loretta Powell of Little Detroit Community Garden finally got to have her children’s garden tour.
Surrounded by fruits and flowers, the seeds Powell was planting were not just for flowers, but for creating the next generation of Detroiters’ civic engagement. Six elementary school children from the neighborhood attended.
Located on the east side of Detroit, the event started with a tour of the garden and a lesson about how important plants are to the ecosystem. She showed them the plant that started the whole thing, a Butterfly Shape Rain, which she got with a grant from the Eastside Community Network.
“I had planted (her first plant) because I had flooding,” Powell says.
One of the things Powell showed the children was a spot where neighborhood kids would sit and read, and that area became a gathering place for the neighborhood. That sense of community was something she remembered when she was a kid in that neighborhood and wanted to bring back.
Kids plant seeds during their visit to Little Detroit Community Garden. (Courtesy photo)
The event was to celebrate the garden becoming handicap accessible. It was only a few boards put down, but it increased the number of people who could participate.
“Handicapped people need to get out and associate with people,” says Powell.
She believes everyone needs to be a part of the community, and that is one of the lessons she wanted to impart to the children.
The importance of community was at the forefront, but she also wanted to show the kids that planting things was neat as well.
One way was with a reading by Darlene House, who is part of the National Inspirational Role Models Visionaries (NIRMV) and does readings for kids all over
The two met at an event honoring those who were a part of the ARISE! Detroit’s annual summer event, Neighborhoods Day, in December 2025.
At Powell’s request, House read “Big Daddy’s Greasy Green Collards.” Fittingly, the book explains the importance of growing food and how it strengthens relationships.
As she showed the kids around, she told them the late ARISE! Detroit founder Luther Keith was the inspiration for the garden, and he helped her receive a grant to start her garden. Keith died unexpectedly in March.
“I am so grateful for Luther Keith’s vision,” says Powell. “It brought our pride back.”
Flowers bloom on a hot summer day inside Little Detroit Community Garden. (Courtesy photo)
Keith was a major presence in the garden, and Powell credits her community engagement to him. She told the children she considered him her “community father.”
Although Keith later became a source of inspiration, Powell recalls that when they first met, she was ready to leave Detroit.
“I wanted to leave the city, but when I received a grant from Eastside Community Network in 2019 for my Butterfly Shape Rain, I was proud of where I was living,” says Powell. “Then, when I participated in ARISE! Detroit’s Neighborhood Day event, I was more inspired about where I was living because I was held accountable for helping to keep my neighborhood safe and clean.”
After the reading, the kids were all given seeds to plant in the garden and invited to come back to check on their progress.
What started as a seed of a grant has been tended over the seasons, harvesting a community, and bearing new fruit into the future.
Comments are closed.