Hilltop resident Anna Siriano supports growing food and children alike at Highland Youth Garden.
Doral Chenoweth, The Columbus Dispatch
By day, Siriano, 31, serves as director of membership engagement at the Ohio Environmental Council. For the last several years, she’s filled much of her spare time volunteering at Highland Youth Garden, eventually joining the board as a member in late 2020 before rising to the role of vice president the following year and board president in January 2022.“She has no shortage of experience and insight and ideas,” said Shelly Casto, executive director of the garden.
Today, the half-acre garden features a larger high tunnel, a 1,700-gallon underground cistern to collect rainwater for irrigation, programs for youth from elementary school through teenage years, a newly purchased home on an adjacent lot to expand that programming, a twice-weekly free market and an on-site education center, plus plots for fruits, vegetables, herbs, pollinators and native plants. It’s open 24/7 and doesn’t have a barrier fence, making it welcoming to all.
In 2019, Siriano became more involved with the community through the United Way of Central Ohio’s Neighborhood Leadership Academy and Envision Hilltop’s community planning meetings. “The Highland Youth Garden continually came up as being this sort of prized area in the neighborhood,” she said. Then, “the things that the garden was doing … impressed me. They made me want to be more involved as a leader, because the organization was adapting to the needs of the community.
Woodard agreed, noting that Siriano often helps Argiro, who is also active in the community, with civic projects. While she enjoys spending quiet, early mornings in the garden and talking with patrons of the free markets, Siriano’s face lights up with what Casto calls an “infectious smile” when speaking about the kids she gets to support. “It’s reaffirming every time I’m able to come out here, to be able to be here, see the kids or the teens having fun,” Siriano said. “If you do good work and you provide a positive, happy environment … that plants the seeds of them continuing to spread the love.
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