Growing CASS
Local nonprofit promotes living—and gardening—skills for people with disabilities
By Tabitha Ervin
Of Fort Wayne Ink Spot
Last year, for the first time, I grew some veggies in a garden I started in my backyard at home. I was inspired by the raised beds we have at the Jackson Lehman YMCA where I work.
I spent all summer watering and weeding with our teen gardening club as we watched everything grow. From watermelon to cucumbers, a variety of tomatoes to squash and zucchini plus a whole bed of various herbs. I thought, if we can do this at the Y, I can try it at home too!
It was such a fun and fulfilling experience to grow my own food! I didn’t buy one cucumber all summer and my daughter and I normally eat about two or so each week. It was awesome and, of course, I’ll do it again this year as we enter the planting season.
Growing our food is the way of the future in many communities around the nation and here locally. There are a variety of community gardens, master gardening classes, and small groups starting gardening classes in the city of Fort Wayne.
Recently I got to sit down with David Buuck, the Executive Director at CASS Housing and as he shared about the organization’s mission and its programs, he also told me they were starting a container gardening project at the end of April.
Tabitha: First tell us about the organization.
David: The mission of CASS Housing is to create and maintain Customizable, Affordable, Sustainable, and Safe living arrangements for individuals with developmental and/or intellectual disabilities that promote independent living skills.
CASS Housing was created in 2015 to first answer the question being asked by parents, “What is going to happen to my child with a disability when I’m no longer able to care for them or I pass away?”
CASS was created to directly and proactively address this need in our community.
For our clients who we call Core Members, we discovered that nearly all faced the same three key issues: employment, (only 44% of people with a disability are employed, 1 of our 6 core members maintained a job during COVID); access, and working knowledge of healthy food; and meaningful days (there are 168 hours in a week and playing video games/watching TV for 80 of those is not productive).
Tabitha: Tell me how you got to the container gardening concept and how it will be set up.
David: One of our clients' dad has an agricultural background and he originally suggested it. As we looked into the idea of being able to create jobs vs just doing job training and we thought that would be more beneficial to our Core Members.
The idea came about July 2020 and two funders purchased the first two containers for us to get started at the end of this month. We hired a Director of Garden Operations, Robert Johnson, who started in January to get the idea fully formulated. He will get everything set up and ready to go and then our Core Members will be able to work about 3-4 hours per day helping with planting, packing, and delivery. We will be fully operational in July.
Robert has studied hydroponics, taken a few master gardening classes, and done some market research to make sure we are prepared. Our containers are from Freight Farms and will be fully furnished for gardening.
Tabitha: This is so awesome and I love gardening so I am excited for you! How can people get connected to this project?
David: Right now we have created a structure for buyers in the following order:
Core Members, other non-profit partners such as GiGi’s Playhouse-Genesis Health Bar, CSA (community supported agriculture) which any person in Fort Wayne can take advantage of, wholesale and retail. We already have an established buyer base so we are excited about this for our community!
We want to continue being a resource for families which is why we continue to grow our partnerships and programs as we see the need or families express interest. I always want us to see the gaps of service in the community and look to “fill the gaps!”
For more info about CASS please check them out online at www.casshousing.org
