Hattie's Garden fosters personal growth and promotes sustainable agriculture.
Hattie's Garden
Hattie’s Garden is a sustainable agriculture garden that grows chemical-free produce. The program is also a Hattie Larlham vocational program for adults with developmental disabilities.
The garden adheres to sustainable growing practices including crop rotation to prevent soil depletion, composting, the use of beneficial insects to manage insect populations that could damage crops, spreading mulches to suppress weeds and using disease-resistant cultivators.
Working with Hattie Larlham job coaches, employees learn gardening skills, such as safely using gardening tools, watering plants and cultivating seedlings. The benefits of a healthy diet and the importance of harvesting crops at their optimum nutrient level is woven into the program.
Produce grown and harvested at Hattie’s Garden will be sold to community outlets, including Hattie’s Cafés & Gifts, the Hattie Larlham Center for Children with Disabilities, the Hattie Larlham employee cafeteria and local farmers’ markets. Surplus produce will be available for employees and donated to local food banks.
Hattie’s Garden maintains a flock of 20 free-range, laying hens. These hens produce eggs that are collected and packaged in cartons for sale with the produce at an on-site market at Hattie’s Garden.
Hattie's Garden is a collaboration with Crown Point Ecology Center and the County of Summit Developmental Disabilities Board.
If you own or work for a farmers' market, restaurant or speciality grocery store in the greater Akron, Ohio, area and would like to learn more about carrying sustainable produce from Hattie's Garden, please contact Hattie Larlham.
Dotty Grexa
Vice President, Vocational and Enterprise Services
Dotty Grexa, vice president, vocational and enterprise services, joined the Hattie Larlham executive team in Oct. 2007. Prior to her promotion, Grexa served as a Hattie Larlham consultant, where she developed and implemented...
