Difference makers: Petitti Garden Center

Back in July, a community garden and food forest near Youngstown, Ohio, that provides food for area residents in need was vandalized. Twenty-nine cherry, peach, apple and other fruit trees that had been planted in April were chopped in half, and the perpetrator left the pieces behind.

When Boardman Petitti Garden Center manager Pat Voeks saw the news story about the crime at the nearby garden on TV, he called vice president AJ Petitti and asked if the store could help.

“Youngstown has been a good supporter of the store and they needed help, and honestly it made me sick that someone would do that,” says Petitti, who operates nine stores in Northeast Ohio. “Someone cut down all of these fruit trees with pruning shears, why would they do that? The fruit goes to the needy portion of the community.”

The store donated 29 pear, peach and apple trees to replace what had been lost. “It was just the right thing to do,” Petitti says. “It was nice to help.”

Mason Carratt, who established the Youngstown Inner City Gardens and Food Forest, said he was “in near tears” when Voeks called him to let him know Petitti would help.

“Where I live is a very poor part of this city and [it has] high crime — like a food desert. I have spent the last five years giving away produce from around my yard to anyone and everyone. So the neighborhood took it hard when the trees were cut down,” Carratt says. “I have taught many children and adults how to start from seed, grow and harvest produce. Most important though, I taught them how to love enough to give it away.” 

Dozens of volunteers helped replant the donated trees from Petitti just a few days after the crime.

The property with the garden was once an “overgrown, garbage-filled property,” according to an article in The Vindicator newspaper. That project was such a success that Carratt expanded to another parcel across the street and built the 50-tree Food Forest, where the vandalism occurred. Carratt and a team of volunteers tend to the garden to produce food for the neighborhood.