Ben Franklin Community Garden's New Pavilion

Ben Franklin Community Garden (BFCG) is located in Cleveland's Old Brooklyn Neighborhood and is coming up on it's 40th Anniversary in 2021. Historically, the garden was used as a teaching garden with Cleveland Public School’s garden program and had a gazebo where students learned and relaxed. 

BFCG has been a community gem for many years, spurring long-term relationships between gardeners and the community at large and a pavilion would add to the opportunities for community building. This space would provide an area for folks to gather (in a socially distanced way) and take in diverse programming that would serve to engage folks on a consistent basis. 

BFCG envisions consistent programming in the pavilion - concerts, poetry, children's plays, all-ages educational programs, and so on which is very difficult with our current setup. The garden had some programming in 2020, however, it was not ideal due to the constraints of not having a gathering area. The pavilion will solve this problem and help us expand our community footprint.

The global pandemic, material shortages, scope changes and availablity of contractors severely impacted our initial timeline. That said, check our updates page to see our progress. It may be a bit behind but we're getting there!

March 2021

Apply for Neighborhood Connections Rapid Response COVID Grant

Grant application successful, $5000 awarded

Early April 2021

Gather quotes and acquire contractors for job.

Late April 2021 (Shifted to June 2021)

Pour foundation, partially acquire wood (in anticipation of additional funding through IOBY campaign)

May/June 2021 (Shifted to August 2021)

Begin full on build out in anticipation of an early summer ribbon cutting.

July 2021 (We got this part down! Kind of.)

First 'Official' Concert/Event

Overall Summer/Fall/Winter 2021

Ongoing concerts and community events

Ben Franklin Community Garden is celebrating its 40th Year in Cleveland's Old Brooklyn Neighborhood. In that time, it's been a place where folks from all around the area come to the garden, grow together, and build community. A pavilion would give gardeners and community members a place to continue that tradition, and then some.