Garden Preservation
All People's Garden

CONTACT: Olean For

LOCATION: East 3rd Street Between Avenues B & C

In 1978 Olean For recognized the degradation of her neighborhood due to drugs and set out to save youth from drug abuse. She gathered people off the streets of all ages to build the All Peopleís Garden. The garden serves hundreds of people each year of all ages and races.

The garden is financed by the Council on the Environment and has a long term lease. Olean does not believe that it will be threatened during her life time. She has been recognized nation-wide by elected leaders and thanked by many for her work to hel p keep children off drugs and to help those who have been affected by drugs or violence.

Eventually, Olean hopes to turn the garden over to the Third Street Block Association where members of the Girls Club will direct garden programs, maintain the garden, and continue the many community oriented projects to which Olean has contributed. In addition to being populated with birds, animals and flowers, the garden has a program for 15 teenage First Offenders which was started in 1979. There is also a Head Start program for 4-12 year olds, local artists run childrenís programs, and there are youth and teen drug prevention projects.

Olean For has worked diligently for nineteen years to make her community both safe and beautiful. She has devoted her energies to improving the lives of the children in this neighborhood by causing them to create life, through the garden, instead of d estroying their own lives through drugs and crime.

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