TFTC Gardens is delighted to have started work at the Cumberland Juvenile Detention Center with the design and implementation of the first TFTC Garden. To be a TFTC Garden, the organization must include the structures recommended by the TFTC Gardens Team. These recommendations will help to promote mental wellbeing using resiliency strategies that we described earlier. The TFTC Gardens team has spent the last two years carrying out extensive mental health research including international networking, concept sharing, strategy development and creation of ideas for Juvenile Justice including providing support with grant applications.

Recently the TFTC Gardens team have been networking extensively in the Fayetteville area. They have discovered an incredible community who are supporting Juvenile Justice with the building phase of the garden. Reka Reyna, Outreach Co-ordinator, Steven A. Cohn Military Family Clinic, has done an outstanding job of organizing a group of volunteers from the local police departments, military groups, and veterans. We also have support of the Master Gardeners with Cape Fear Botanical Gardens and other local Fayetteville organizations.

Using generous public donations TFTC Gardens has funded a water feature and beautiful wall mural designed by Edie Cohn and painted by artists Edie Cohn and Jerdahn Campbell. Volunteers visited the detention center to help prep and prepare the wall for the mural. We are now excited to be moving forward to complete this project and then begin supporting another non-profit organization with the implementation of a specially designed TFTC Garden.

We look forward to hearing from you! We are always looking for volunteers to join the TFTC Gardens Team and generous donors who will help make our trauma-informed therapeutic community gardens possible. Community is everything.

Read more at Nami Wake County…

Date: Tuesday, September 17, 2019
Time: 12pm (noon)
Location: Cumberland County Communicare
109 Bradford Avenue, Fayetteville, NC

RSVP – Reserve your seat

We are grateful for your generous support and dedication to this project. We have outlined the current priorities and the participating parties. Please share your updates as they become available with us and we will keep everyone updated.

1. 12’x12′ square concrete outdoor classroom area and 12′ round counseling area: Annie Harvey with NC DPS JJ
2. Irrigation system: group members reaching out to find local irrigation system experts
3. Soil information, amount of fertilizer, compost, lime: Jason Weathington with Cumberland County Coop Extention
4. Sun Awnings: Lisa Jayne with Fayetteville Police Department
5. Plants: Jason Weathington with Cumberland County Coop Extention and Riley Hickman
6. Compacted dirt pathways:
7. Standing planters: Amy Stidman can offer information about costs/ suppliers
8. Additional drawings and additions as needed Riley Hickman
9. Lowe’s:  Reka Reyna with Cape Fear Valley Health and Cumberland wellness
10. Volunteers: Oates Samuel with FPD/MCD, Tony Brown with Southern CC Inc, Reka Reyna with Cape Fear Valley Health

Please find attached our current drawing for the entire hardscape garden areas and the right portion of the garden area by Riley. The right portion includes inner walking paths connecting the counseling area, water feature, exterior walking path, and the outdoor classroom.

Our next meeting will be on Tuesday. September 17, 2019, at 12 pm/noon at Cumberland County Communicare. RSVP – reserve your seat.

This is a mental health initiative designed to promote positive emotional well-being using an outdoor space. This space will introduce trauma-focused care initiatives to encourage emotional recovery and the building of resiliency skills.  It is now known that environments whether indoor or outdoor will have an impact on our emotional well-being.

The next phase on this project is a community planning meeting on August 15, 2019. We are excited about the beginning of phase 3 with therapeutic garden areas.

The first phase of our trauma-informed therapy garden project is complete with a beautiful mural! We are grateful for artists Edie Cohn who created the design and vision of this mural and Jerdahn Campbell who shared her artistic talents with the students and staff at Cumberland Juvenile Detention Center and bringing light to an often forgotten group in our community.

This project would not have been successful without our generous volunteers Edie Cohn, Jerdahn Campbell, Dawn Thomas with Juvenile Justice, Marsha Hall and her mom Marsha, Reka Reyna with Cape Fear Valley Health, and Natasha Donnelly and Anna Campbell with TFTC Gardens. We also want to extend a very big thank you to the incredible staff at Cumberland Juvenile Detention Center for helping us over this three-week project!

Our next phase includes installing a water feature, walking paths, a counseling area, an outdoor classroom, a music therapy section, and horticultural learning areas!

For anyone who loves to garden, create art, design landscapes, implement contract developments or help create outdoor healthy spaces, this might be a project you would like to involved with too. Plans are in the works to create the gardens all over North Carolina, and then beyond – the adventure has only begun!

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COST: $8 PER PLATE
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Pre-order and pay your plates now and select the number of plates you want to pre-order.

Order 10 or more plates and receive free delivery in the local Fayetteville, NC area. Include your address where delivery should be made when purchasing 10 or more plates.

PICKUP: JUNE 28, 2019 from 11 AM – 5 PM
Location: 1911 COLISEUM DRIVE FAYETTEVILLE, NC 28306

Here is our progress report from May 19, 2019.

1. Trauma Focused Therapeutic Community Gardens – (TFTC) Gardens is now registered as a non-profit organization in the state of North Carolina so fundraising can officially begin (Our Go Fund Me fundraiser page has gone live!).
2. We now have military, veteran and police volunteers who will be joining the team to assist when we have a timeline firmed up.
3. Master Gardener’s in Fayetteville, Cape Fear Botanical Gardens and Fayetteville technical college will be supporting the garden planting, etc. A landscape architect is creating a CAD drawing with all the measurements for accuracy moving forward. Soil sampling will take place in the coming weeks. Cape Fear Therapeutic Gardening program will guide us with therapeutic plants for the gardens and help guide us on sustainability and safety issues etc. Fayetteville Technical College has offered to provide some of the plants and assist with discounts on topsoils etc.
4. Concrete contractors will be visiting the Cumberland Juvenile Detention Center next week.
5. Plans will start taking place for a fund-raising event in Fayetteville and an online campaign (Tena Sonko with Cumberland Juvenile Detention Center is coordinating with us for a Plate Sale on June 28, 2019).
6. Natasha is having talks at Duke University who will be assisting with the evaluation of this initiative.
7. Natasha is also working on an iPad evaluation system and will be reaching out to tech folks (We have been in contact with Jayanthi Raghu with Kryssalis Software, LLC.).
8. A new committee has been established for the artists involved in the project and a timeline is being established.
9. The Cumberland Wellness Team are excited and involved as we progress.

We are thrilled about the amount of progress that has been made and we look forward to additional updates with volunteer dates and sponsorship opportunities soon! For more information about how you can be involved, visit our Volunteer/Donor interest page!

Join us as we work together to create an exciting positive social change and make trauma-focused therapeutic community gardens a reality.

“The success of this project is that everyone has a valuable part to play. These gardens are being built by the community for the community. They are owned by the community and valued by the community. The aim is to celebrate everyone involved every step of the way. Life is about celebrating the little things which, when gathered together, become the most valuable things – they are the essence of what creates shared happiness.” – Natasha Donnelly

Mission Statement

TFTC Gardens will be involved in the research, design, evaluation, support, and funding for organizations to build gardens designed around trauma recovery initiatives for at-risk youth.

Use of Funds

Donations are being accepted through our Go Fund Me fundraiser. Donations received will be used towards our first garden installation at Cumberland Juvenile Detention Center and to seed future gardens for at-risk youth. All funds will be deposited into the TFTC Gardens organization bank account.

Garden areas being funded:

• hardscape pathways
• natural pathways with mulch
• plants within the rainbow pattern
• plants within herb and vegetable garden
• structure for a small outdoor classroom
• sunshades for the garden area
• irrigation system
• gardening tools
• basketball court resurfacing
• exterior murals
• exterior tile student artwork
• fountain fixture and plumbing
• grass for open areas
• mosaic and decorative pieces for hardscape pathways
• interactive learning and therapy app
• interactive color therapy app

Focus

The focus is to provide safe spaces for recovery, ways of connecting with others and for vocational training. These gardens will include sensory zones, plantings for education and reconnecting with nature–including where food comes from; outdoor classrooms, active art areas, pacing pathways, and poetry reading/ yoga spaces. The goal is that these multipurpose outdoor spaces will be built in youth centers across North Carolina and beyond.

The Power of Your Donations

A custom guidebook for this trauma-focused therapeutic space will accompany the gardens to suggest ways that each special section could be utilized by students, staff, and visitors.

These unique trauma-focused gardens will –

• Provide safe spaces and activities for trauma recovery – including sensory plants, pathways, Luke’s Leap of Faith (an accessible mosaic river with stepping stones), colored spaces for mood expression, yoga, and art expression walls. Innovative approaches with a guidebook to enhance the recovery process.
• Encourage social connections – a space for group work, joining together and providing healthy conversation topics about garden life and activities.
• Provide vocational training – learning about plants, growing healthy vegetables, learning to cook with fresh vegetables, building garden structures and more.
• Promote science education – educational experiences in outdoor classrooms to enhance the learning experience.
• Provide spaces for community and family engagement.
• Aid in suicide prevention.
• Facilitate stress relief for staff – to reduce staff burnout and improve staff retention.

Donate Today

Join us as we work together to create an exciting positive social change. Be a part of our trauma-focused therapeutic community gardens© becoming a reality. Donate Today!

Cumberland Youth Development Center

Our first trauma-focused garden is scheduled to be installed during the summer of 2019 at Cumberland Regional Juvenile Detention Center in Fayetteville, NC. We hope that these gardens will become valuable resources across the States and internationally.

“The success of this project is that everyone has a valuable part to play. These gardens are being built by the community for the community. They are owned by the community and valued by the community. The aim is to celebrate everyone involved every step of the way.  Life is about celebrating the little things which, when gathered together, become the most valuable things – they are the essence of what creates shared happiness.” – Natasha Donnelly

The Beginning of our first Trauma-focused Therapeutic Garden in North Carolina

Whilst working in psychiatric settings, our organization President, Natasha Donnelly was aware that initiating communication about sensitive topics could be difficult. “I began to use color-coded floor markings with young people so that they could stand on a color to represent how they were feeling without having to verbalize this to staff. Alternative ways to communicate, walking outside, listening to music and other strategies were beneficial to distressed young people. I realized that it was essential to create opportunities to allow for healthy conversations. Discussing garden life would be a way for staff, students/ patients to share stories about a shared area of interest.”

NC State University Student Provides Garden Drawing

Natasha continued researching therapeutic and sensory gardens and contacted a design student Ben Markoch at NC State University with her suggestions of developing these strategies into a garden design. “I wanted to be able to visualize and share the concept of a pacing pathway, colored mood space’s, area’s to allow for creativity including art walls, a water feature, poetry space, group space, and sensory plants. Ben’s wonderful drawing gave me a starting place to share the concept.”

Introducing A Water Element

Reflections on what she had observed in actual settings continued to grow the ideas to incorporate into the design. For example, one young adult had been washing his hands for long periods of time and visited the water fountain regularly. “He was staring at the water and I spoke to him about this. He described that he liked the look of the water because it was sparkly and beautiful, a rare thing in a grey building.”

Future students and staff at Juvenile Justice were also interested in water. Water and water representation became therapeutically significant for the garden design. Natasha later developed this into an area on the pathway called the “Luke’s Leap of Faith” which involved stepping stones over a river effect. A student or member of staff could decide whether they were ready to take a “leap of faith” as they walk around the pathway. “The concept is that this is the peoples garden designed around idea’s that are shared and impactful to the population.” (Please note the story behind “Luke’s Leap of Faith” will be shared in a later interview with Betsy Rhodes, Area Director of the NC Chapter of the AFSP).

Working together was leading to an exciting positive social change.

The process of research and design idea’s continued and then in 2017, Natasha contacted the Departmental Head of Horticulture at NC State University. Natasha was now working a Juvenile Justice and thought it would be an amazing opportunity for Juvenile Justice students and staff to work with NC State faculty and students to assist with implementing the design and build of the gardens. This led to Natasha meeting Anne Spafford a faculty member and Horticultural design expert at NC State University.

Juvenile Justice Students and NC State University Students

This was a wonderful connection that led to growing the initiative and involving both Juvenile Justice students and NC State Students to grow the initial ideas into a superbly designed fully interactive outdoor space. “This is now truly a unique garden developed to encourage personal growth, recovery, vocational skills and creativity.” NC State students presented their designs to leaders of the Department of Public Safety, representatives for other governmental agencies including Jane Miller, Public Health Consultant (now on the garden planning committee), non-profits and importantly it was broadcast live via webcam so that the students in the JJ centers could see the designs and their influence on the process. “Juvenile Justice students could be heard cheering when they saw their idea’s being shared by the NC State Students.”

Art Expression in the Garden Fundraiser

The design process led to statewide interest and media excitement culminating in a garden fundraiser last year called “Art Expression in the Garden” at the beautiful JC Raulston Arboretum. Performers including 2 of the Carolina Ballet’s Principal dancers, ballet dancers from Sarasota Ballet, Washington Ballet and International Ballet Academy, NC Opera Singer Lora Fabio, Artist Sonja Simone, Project runway designer Justin LeBlanc led fashion show with Art to Wear, NYC and local models, Sonny4Miles Band, Authoring Action and many other amazing artists and community activists including Imurj , Jane and Mark Miller, Anna Campbell , MaryAnn Tormey, American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, NAMI, Baptist Home for Children, Juvenile Justice staff, NC State students and faculty, First Lady of NC, NPR and local news all joined forces to promote the Juvenile Justice Gardens.

Community Partnerships

On hearing the interview on NPR Radio and seeing the CBS news coverage about the fundraiser Ed Schultheis, landscape expert, and owner of ThruPutNow, came forward and joined Anne and Natasha to continue moving this exciting project forward. The process now has culminated into a statewide collaboration of ideas including the Juvenile Justice students, Juvenile Justice staff, the students Natasha worked within Psychiatric settings, mental health charities, State organisations and the amazing new designs produced by Anne Spafford and the NC State students.

The collaborative designs incorporate the early concepts that Natasha had researched and developed. This includes the pacing pathways, colored mood expression spaces, as well as amazing plants, yoga, and counseling areas, a new basketball court, art walls and much more. Natasha is developing a handbook to introduce each section of the garden and how it can be used therapeutically and evaluation tools to monitor outcomes. “I am particularly excited that this will introduce a shared interest for both students and staff in the Juvenile Justice settings and initiate ongoing healthy conversations. Good communication is key to recovery.”

Join Us

We welcome you to join us as a volunteer or donor. Everyone is welcome.

Photo credit: Daniela Turcanu