The Rid-All Green Partnership is an agricultural and social enterprise led by family members and childhood friends from Cleveland’s east-side neighborhoods. As dynamic urban farmers and eco-visionaries, the Rid-All team serves a deeper calling than food production or local economic development, though those are certainly peices to the mosaic. “We find that in commercial farming and agriculture, people are willing to do anything for a buck,” says farmer and humanitarian Mark White, “even sacrifice the health of the people.” 

 

   “We are about getting people on the path of healthy holistic living experience where they are ingesting good food and good thoughts, and exhibiting great behavior.” The Rid-All Green Partnership is also a high-functioning learning environment for students of all ages. With a curriculum meeting Ohio Education Standards, the farmer-teachers can show urban grade-schoolers photosynthesis up close. Students with disabilities or disadvantages can thrive in a tactile, immersive classroom. Rid-All is also the go-to learning hub for innovative urban agriculture, serving as the Regional Outreach Training Center of Milwaukee’s Growing Power, Inc. (Will Allen). Community education even takes place through a comic book series and clothing line. Growing healthy outcomes after decades of neglect takes time. The “Forgotten Triangle” was once a densely housed area which tragically burned down forty years ago due to hydrant failure. Since then, “anything that could happen bad, happened here,” says David ‘Dr. Greenhand’ Hester. The triangle was a common dumping ground for cars, refrigerators, and even bodies. But only six years into Rid-All‘s intentional approach, “families are coming down to barbeque, basketball courts are filling up,” and visitors from all corners of the country and world are coming to enjoy their oasis.