In 2024, CPI received a generous grant award from the City of Cincinnati's Boots on the Ground program and set about growing and nurturing ten “Food Champions" around the west side of the city. This year, we are inviting our Food Champs to share their stories.
This month, meet Heather Sayre and learn about her project “Endaknorr” in South Fairmont:
About Heather:
I have experience in urban agriculture, occupational therapy, and community organizing. I completed the permaculture design course in 2008 with Braden and Ande’s first cohort in Cincinnati, grew vegetables for Enright Ridge Urban Ecovillage and various WWOOF opportunities, led garden classes at Parker Woods Montessori, started a resident garden at Brookside Intermittent Care Facility, supported community integration groups gardening at Village Green, and worked for Wildwood Flora flower farm. I currently work at Working In Neighborhoods, where I coordinate Beekman Community Market. I studied occupational therapy to become an educated advocate for my daughter who has CriDuChat and feel that my work with food is a branch of the philosophy of occupation. I believe that participation in food producing activities is an essential component of the human experience, and that everyone deserves to have access to the opportunity to interact with the life forms that give them sustenance. I enjoy making brooms, baskets, bouquets, and preserving bunny furs, attending my son’s music and theatre performances, and helping my daughter participate in be well programs.
About Endaknorr:
Endaknorr is a Food Playground located on a 5 acre property at the end of Knorr Avenue in South Fairmount. The goal is to provide a public space where kids can play in the company of food bearing plants with shared community supervision. The site has been subjected to dumping for generations, so the plum terrace, berry grotto, and persimmon bank are all no dig installations. We used logs, bramble, and chips that were harvested in the neighborhood as well as purchased compost to build up the soil. There is room for additional installations as more honeysuckle is harvested.
What motivated you to do this?
I love this property because I grew up eating mulberries and looking for treasures in the dump as I walked past. The closest playground or park is over a mile away in any direction, so kids play in the street and come over to my house to play in the gardens, visit rabbits, read, and play piano. I love the privilege of teaching the kids in my neighborhood. I have wanted to create structure so that I can expect when to see them, and they can expect when I am open to supervising them. The location of the food playground on the curb gives play space to the kids, gives my home more privacy (because sometimes I need to rest), and gives more adults the opportunity to participate in line of sight supervision. As much as I like finding treasures in the dump, I hope that the installation results in less dumping, because I would rather spend my time planting, weeding, and harvesting.
Who is your audience? Who helped out?
Twelve kids between the ages of 2 and 11 who live up to four blocks away (plus kids in my family) have participated in garden projects at Endaknorr in the past year. Their attendance is sporadic and unpredictable. A newly designed structure uses prizes to reinforce communication with caregivers and skill building.
The installation of the new zone was assisted by Susan Vonderhaar, Krystal Gallagher, Jules Brookbank, Chad Reed, Renu Bakhshi, Anna Taylor, and Bill Heibroch (of South Fairmount Community Council). Working In Neighborhoods assisted with directing the focus of the demonstration project toward the curb. Growing Value supplied plants, and Hafners’ supplied soil.
How did the project help grow community?
Our neighborhood lacks adult gathering places as well. I enjoy waving and chatting with neighbors while working on the project. A few neighbors have asked what I was doing, and one offered to help! I am planning to host a block party at the food playground this summer so that everyone can come out and learn what it’s all about and how to enjoy the space.
Adopting the framework of a permaculture demonstration site has allowed me to feel comfortable asking for help implementing my design. Neighbors from former residences came to work with me. I connected with a professor at UC whose students need places to study browsing patterns. I’m excited for the whole property to be a demonstration, and am getting better about talking about it.
How did the project help grow food?
Endaknorr replaced invasive honeysuckle with a diverse selection of perennial plants that produce fruit, nuts, berries, biomass, and more. The food playground makes the skills related to food production a normal part of the environment as our youth mature, and provides prizes for learning new skills. I have been able to add one or two perennials to the property each year since I moved here. The support of the CPI project allowed me to plant 27 new plants as well as purchase tools so that I can work at the same time as guests.
What do you see as future impacts? What kind of vision do you have for this or other sites going forward?
The youth of Endaknorr are going to grow up experiencing food forests, not dumps, as the norm. They are going to know how to grow food. There is going to be a diverse seed bank for them to propagate from and take to their property, where they will teach the next generation. Cincinnati can be a food paradise where all the extra little spaces are planted with food crops. Endaknorr can become an example for that. I have a nice notebook of ideas for play features that engage all of the senses (not just the 5, but also temporal, vestibular, etc.), train motor and cognitive skills, and direct food production skills. I’m looking forward to continuing to create as well as plant as more honeysuckle moves.
Based on your experience, what can you advise to mentor a new, budding food, champ?
Advocate for your idea as much as you advocate for others’. Focus on one spot at a time. Dream big, work small. Start, and then keep going. Plan the start time as soon as you plan to do the project- time goes by really fast. Additional planning can come after starting, especially if you have invasives to harvest. They need to get harvested so you can really see the space. Design is a lot about planning the end point, make sure to design micro phases.