CLEVELAND — Every year, the Catholic Community Foundation in Northeast Ohio strives to raise millions of dollars to help its community.

What You Need To Know

  • The Catholic Community Foundation has launched its annual appeal

  • The Grafton Correctional Institution grows vegetables in its garden to help provide food to those in need

  • The Grafton inmates hope to grow 20,000 pounds of vegetbales in their garden next year 
 

Over the past weekend, it launched its annual appeal. This year the organization hopes to bring in $15 million.

Sister Rita Mary Harwood, SND remembers the call she received from the Grafton Correction Institute several years ago.

“The question was, could you use vegetables?” Harwood said. “Do you know any group that would be able to use vegetables? The men would like to grow a garden for the community.”

The men they were referencing were inmates at the prison, ones whose days were filled with tasks like working in the kitchen or laundry.

But these men wanted to do more in their free time.

“This is the minimal the free time that they have they’re spending it so that they can get connected to the outside community and serve others and it gives them a sense of purpose,” said Patrick Gareau, president of Catholic Charities, diocese of Cleveland.  

The Grafton Vegetable Garden was born in 2021, and since then, all the fresh vegetables grown there are donated to hunger centers. 

“The men were able to grow 16,500 pounds of vegetables. We supply not only the Cosgrove Center but the other food centers in the Cleveland area but also in Lorain County,” Gareau said.

Sister Harwood said the relationship between the correctional institution and the people they’re helping to feed doesn’t go unnoticed. 

“One day I was driving down the driveway here at the Cosgrove center and the men saw me in my little Toyota filled with vegetables and they stood up as I went by cheering and clapping and I think that expressed so well just the delight in having fresh food,” Harwood said.

But it’s one story in particular that an inmate once told Sister Harwood that encapsulates what the garden is all about.

“I received a note from one of my relatives who was taking care of my 97-year-old father while I was in prison and she said to me please don’t worry, every week I go to the Cosgrove center and they give me a big bag of fresh vegetables.” He said, "I realized I was feeding my family from prison."

All the starter plants for the garden are provided free of charge from family-owned Boyert’s Greenhouse and Farm in Medina. 

But then it’s the money raised by the Catholic Community Foundation’s Annual Appeal that helps transport the vegetables to the hunger center and pays to store them.

“Their goal for next year is 20,000 pounds. So we’ll see, but I think they’ll be able to do that. They’re very excited,” Harwood said.

Gareau stated that they offer support to the homeless, hungry families, and individuals, regardless of their faith or background.

“The Catholic Charities is in the eight counties of our diocese and we reach out to almost 400,000 people each year, including programs like this Grafton Prison Garden,” Gareau said.

Correction: The previous version of this story misspelled Patrick Gareau's name. This has been corrected. (Feb. 13, 2024)