KMTV CBS Channel 3 in Omaha Reports on Garden Grants

Benson Community Garden

Address: 1302 North 60th Street, Omaha, NE 68132

Phone: (402) 714-0290

Opened: 2011

Website

In 1980, I was a chubby 12-year-old kid carrying my transistor radio, listening to Otis XII and Diver Dan Doomey banter while spinning rock songs on Z-92 as I walked to school. On my way, I always cut across the same, big empty lot…

It was just a scrubby patch of ground at 60th and Lafayette in Omaha. The kind every neighborhood has, and nobody looks twice at. I sure didn’t. Each day, I was just trying to shave a few feet off my walk to and from Lewis and Clark. I had no earthly idea that this corner lot and I would have such a significant impact on each other.

Yesterday, a television crew stood on that same ground to tell its story.

3 News Now sent their Benson neighborhood reporter, Jeremy Fredricks, out to the Benson Community Garden to share some genuinely good news, and I’ve been grinning about it ever since.

Two Grants and What They’ll Grow

Here’s the exciting part. Thanks to two grants, we get to make some real improvements this year. One is funding a new rainwater collection system, which should be installed later this month. The other is bringing to life something we’re calling the Discovery Garden, a space designed to show people the surprising things that actually grow right here in our Nebraska climate, plants most folks would never guess they could raise in their own backyard. The rain system goes in soon. The Discovery Garden takes shape this year, with things really starting to grow in 2027.

I want to say a word about the money, because I think it matters. It was not a fortune, only around $3,000 in total, but it goes a remarkably long way when you’ve got willing hands and a clear purpose. Our total annual operating budget to run the garden is only $1,440. That means these two grants alone are worth more than double what we spend keeping the garden running in a typical year. We’re grateful beyond words to the Omaha Community Foundation and the Mayor’s Office for believing in what we’re doing. Without these additional funds, it simply would not happen.

Growing More Than Vegetables

Jeremy and I talked about the growing, of course. We even tasted a few berries I’ve got going, including the goji berries out back at my place, which was a fun thing to do on camera. But the part I most wanted to get across has nothing to do with produce.

As a society, we don’t know our neighbors the way we used to when I was younger. Somewhere along the line, we stopped waving from the porch and started staring at our phones. A community garden like ours quietly fixes that. It hands people a reason to stand in the same patch of dirt, and before long, they’re friends.

I didn’t have to make that case alone. Two of our members said it better than I could. My buddy Justin Ballard (who has gardened here since we opened) talked about how folks who started as complete strangers ended up friends. And Master Gardener intern Leslie McCuiston pointed out how much harder it’s gotten to meet people since the pandemic, and how the garden fills exactly that gap. That’s the whole thing, right there.

If You’ve Got a Dream, Start Building It

Here’s what I hope you take from all this…

If you’ve got an idea that would make your corner of the world a little better, don’t assume the money isn’t out there. Self-fund it if you can. If that’s not an option, for a truly community-benefiting project, there are real foundations, organizations, and offices whose whole purpose is to fund good things in neighborhoods like yours.

I personally took a second mortgage on my home to buy the lot that now hosts the community garden. For the newest additions, we found two public funds that recognized and supported the ideas. You might be surprised by what’s waiting for the person willing to ask.

Which brings me back to this (formerly) empty lot…

That 12-year-old boy in his Star Wars t-shirt who cut across this lot in 1980 had no idea it would one day grow food, grow friendships, and be featured on the evening news. That little patch of ground had been waiting on me the whole time. Fifteen years ago, we finally gave it its purpose, and we’re only getting started…