Thomas Breen photos
Ciera Jones’s mother Darlene Galberth, with floral gift: “I’m going to name it CeCe.”
Truman Street grew just a little bit greener Friday — as neighbors gathered to weed out the trauma from a recent homicide on the block, and plant new life.
That was the scene at the community garden at the corner of Truman Street and Clover Place in the Hill.
At the Truman Street community garden.
Roughly a dozen people — including Truman Street neighbors, Hill top cop Sgt. Justin Marshall, and volunteers from Neighborhood Housing Services of New Haven (NHS), Gather New Haven, and Habitat for Humanity — descended on the block to give a little TLC to the corner green space.
Sweating in the morning heat, the gardeners came together to do more than just pull weeds, till new garden beds, water thirsty vegetables, check in on the little library, and run their hands through bouquets of carrots and kale and beets growing from the raised soil.
They also helped heal each other in the wake of a tragedy that unfolded less than two weeks ago directly across the street.
That’s where 22-year-old Ciera “CeCe” Jones was shot and critically injured outside of her family’s home on a Monday afternoon. Jones would die from her injuries two days later in the hospital.
“It’s peaceful just to look at,” said Jones’s mother, Darlene Galberth, who joined Friday’s gardening crew.
Candles and balloons line the driveway outside of her apartment, commemorating her late daughter’s life. The pain of Jones’s death is still too fresh for Galbert to light a candle or spend anytime by that makeshift memorial.
So, she said, she instead looks out of her groundfloor window and across the street — at the Truman Street garden, verdant and blossoming and bountiful with life.
“It just gives me peace,” she said about the garden. “There’s so much trauma in my mind, in my head. Just looking out and seeing something nice and beautiful helps.”
Leslie Radcliffe (right) with Gather New Haven intern Rebecca Wessel.
Every Truman Street resident who showed up on Friday said the same.
Leslie Radcliffe — who lives a few houses down, helped found the garden nearly a decade ago, and was one of the lead organizers of Friday’s effort — said that the garden’s minders have had to cancel their annual summer volunteer work days two years in a row now.
Last year, because of Covid. This year, because of rampant violence in the Hill, and on Truman Street in particular.
Bringing people back to the greenspace for some communal gardening “gives a little sense of hope and life,” she said. “It will take us a little bit of time to heal.” Activities like Friday’s help.
Mimi Cortes with her grandson, Brian.
Mimi Cortes, who recently moved from Truman Street to Frank Street, said that her 13-year-old grandson Brian still lives on the block — and was at home the afternoon of the murder. He’s been afraid to leave the house ever since, she said. She said she convinced him to come along on Friday only after assuring him a police officer would be there.
“Today is about not being scared of retaliation,” Cortes said. “Today brings a little bit of comfort.”
Surveying the garden and remembering how his grandmother helped Radcliffe found the space a decade ago, Brian said, “I was almost born here.” His favorite memories of the garden? “We’d plan. We’d play games. It’s something relaxing to do. It brings the community together, like a family.”
Rev. Smith, pointing out some carrots (below).
Rev. Victor Smith is the green space’s lead gardener. He said he comes to the garden five or six days a week, now that he’s retired from his day job of 28 years in Yale’s radiology department.
Smith also lives on Truman Street, where he’s the pastor of Liberty Christian Center church.
“I grew up on a farm in South Jamaica,” he said. “This is what I love.”
Pulling roots …
… and weeds, on Truman Street.
What does this particular garden add to Truman Street? Besides, that is, carrots, beets, cucumbers, tomatoes, hot peppers, collard greens, pole beans, and callaloo (aka “the poor man’s spinach,” in Smith’s words)?
“People in crime, they back off” when they see people like Smith working in the garden, he said.
Jose Layedra and his son Andres (pictured) also walked from their home across the street to the garden when they saw all of the people gathered in the green space Friday.
“It brings together the kids,” Layedra said about the garden.
He choked up and held back a tear as he recalled being at the home the afternoon Jones was murdered right next door.
“It’s a healing process,” said Layedra, who works as a clinical therapist for people struggling with drug addiction. “This is a great spot to bring a sense of peace, a sense of purpose to the community.”
Before she rolled up her sleeves and joined Smith in pulling weeds from one of the garden beds, Galberth received a floral gift from NHS’s Stephen Cremin-Endes, who also helped round up volunteers for Friday’s gardening in the Hill.
Cremin-Endes gave her a hanging planter full of purple and white flowers: a mix of purpletop vervain and petunias.
“This made my day,” Galberth said. “I’m going to name this after my daughter.”
She took a last long look at the flowers, before dropping the planter off at her home and returning to work on the public garden bed.
“I’m going to name it CeCe.”
Community gardens like these are wonderful healing places. With all the anger, grief, fear and disconnection that the city is feeling, working with growing green plants and doing something positive to nurture life is a wonderful way to bring the community together to create a little corner of peace and develop relationships with neighbors.
Thank you to all the volunteers working on the community gardens giving neighborhoods a place of positivity and the celebration of nurturing life.
To the loved ones of victims of violence, I pray that you receive justice for your loved one, and peace for yourself and peace for your neighborhood, and all the neighborhoods who are suffering from the epidemic of violence that is plaguing our communities.