14-05-2025
Park City community garden brings positivity, peace, and connection
PARK CITY, Kan. (KSNW) – After nearly 15 years in the corporate world, Donnie Young decided it was time to step away and spend more time with his family, doing something he enjoyed.
'I've always loved gardening, but I haven't always had time to maintain a garden,' Young said.
He wanted that hobby to serve more than just himself, so he started a community garden to feed people who needed it.
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'I really wanted to do kind of a community garden,' Young said. 'Help my neighbors out because the price of produce is high. We give all of our produce away for free. We do videos to try to teach people how to grow because we want people to learn how to grow stuff. We want them to see you can do it in a smaller space because we don't own a whole lot, we rent.'
Donnie works in partnership with his son Donnie Young IV, so their farm is named D Squared. They have given out dozens of plants already.
'It's kind of like a father-son project,' Young IV said. 'It's kind of nice to be a part of something that's bigger than just me.'
Their hope is for people to come and take a plant from the yard, but also to stop and talk. Many neighbors have been donating to Young and giving him ideas.
'I've gotten to know everybody,' Young said. 'Spending time with people, I didn't know my neighbors, I didn't know anybody, and I've been here for 10 years. I've gotten to know my entire neighborhood, like I know everybody now. Being able to talk with people, too much is spent on social media. People with their faces in the phone. I'm trying to encourage people to come up and meet them. Just getting to talk to people has probably been my favorite part.'
'Having everybody on this street contribute and talk, I kind of like that,' Young IV said.
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Stephanie Circle lives down the street and says she plans to utilize their community garden.
'I just think it's wonderful that they are donating so much time, money, and effort to doing this for the community,' Circle said. 'It just shows their big heart for the community, and they've put a lot of work into it.'
They fund the project by building and selling planters. Young says he hopes more people will do this type of thing.
'If you can imagine if every yard had a couple items of produce, you could drive down the road and not spend a ton of money on produce,' Donnie said. 'You get free produce everywhere. I'm trying to start a gardening movement. Bring people together, share the love, and feed people. It's really important right now because there's a lot of bad stuff going on. You got to try to counter that with good stuff, so I'm trying to bring the good stuff.'
Their garden is located at 1526 W. Frontenac in Park City.
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