Spring Cleaning at Rid-All Farm

 Please help us maintain our beautiful campus with your donation for new landscaping equipment

Spring is one of our favorite times of year at Rid-All Farm, as the soil begins to warm, and plants and flowers re-emerge for another season. It’s a beautiful sight that none of us take for granted.

And while we enjoy this time of year, it’s also a time of clean-up, maintenance, and restoration as we work to keep our 15-acre farm property beautifully landscaped. As our geographic footprint continues to grow and we expand into even more areas like the new hoop house erected in the Maple Heights community, we’re in need of new commercial landscaping equipment to ensure our properties remain well maintained. 

In addition to readying our landscape for ongoing programming, we’re also pleased to announce the return of Fresh Fest Cleveland at the Rid-All campus this summer. This free music and arts festival will feature a series of workshops, educational demos, musical performances, art installations, a kid’s zone, farmers market offerings and food & art vendors. With your help, our grounds will be meticulously maintained and ready for this cultural event.

There’s a beauty you experience when you visit the Rid-All campus that we’re proud of and work hard to preserve. Please consider a donation of $25 or more, that will help us purchase lawnmowers, weed-whackers, leaf blowers and a small transport trailer. The total cost of the equipment is approximately $6,000. Your donation will help support this overall goal. Thank you in advance for your donation.

Once we recieve the donations we'll  purchase the landscaping equipment needed to beautify and maintain all of the Rid-All properties.  

Cuyahoga County (Ohio) Board of Health revealed that residents of the Hough neighborhood in Cleveland have a 24.5-year lower life expectancy than residents of Lyndhurst, a suburb just 8.5 miles away. Almost 54% of children in Cleveland live in poverty – the second highest rate in the country. Three childhood friends: Damien Forsche, Randell McShepard and Keymah Durden came together and Founded Rid-Alll Green Partnership to change all that.  They transformed a desolate illegal dumping ground in Cleveland’s Kinsman Neighborhood, into a lush,12-acre urban farm and training center.   

Over the past decade, hundreds of Clevelanders have completed their urban farming training programs and learned how to grow and eat fresh foods, and to operate and grow their own businesses in the food industry, ranging from selling fresh produce and fish to food distributors -to full-fledged processing and packaging of fresh food products. A recent training group included veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The training programs have spawned numerous not-for-profit and business spinoffs, including a commercial fish farm, vegan catering, and beekeeping. Also, Rid-All now owns and operates  a year-round indoor farmers market in Maple Heights called Farmers Jones Market. A vegetarian restaurant and juice business are currently in the works.

Arts and culture have been a key component of all activities at the farm since inception: including community events, live concerts, and art shows. In 2019 “Fresh Fest” Festival was hosted at the Rid-All Farm in partnership with Environmental Health Watch. It included vegan caterers, fresh fruit giveaways, vendors, a basketball tournament, and live musical performances and art demonstrations. There were over 6,000 visitors. The next one is scheduled for September 11, 2021.Rid-All has also celebrated the arts by installing a mural on the site of the farm, and through the creation of the “Brink City – Green in the Ghetto” Comic Book Series which has been distributed to thousands of urban youths to instill important values pertaining to healthy eating and environmental stewardship.  Puppet shows have also been performed for several years to reach younger generations of Clevelanders to inculcate the importance of healthy eating and healthy communities.

Co-founder Keymah Durden said, “Rid-All is about creating environments and experiences which help transform our communities into healthier places. It’s about environmental stewardship, community building and training up leaders of the future.”

As Rid-All has grown so have the needs for more commercial level landscaping equipment to maintain all the properties. We are asking for your help to make that happen.