ABOUT US
Restoring vacant lots, seed after seed.
The Mt Olivet Neighborhood Watch (MONW) is a community organization based in Detroit, MI, that strives to reclaim deserted urban lots and turn them into safe, clean, and healthy green spaces through gardening.
All community service volunteers are welcome!
Watch
Our
Introduction Video
When [I] got married and moved to this neighborhood, it was so beautiful, there were houses everywhere, an apartment building down there, a restaurant, barber shop, hardware store, a bar, a steakhouse.
There was a greenhouse with lots of flowers and plants, and a welding shop. We got along real well on this street until Devil’s Night started. Then they started lighting fires. We had a nice big garage that you could drive your
car into, with an apartment upstairs. They burned that down, and the one next door. Then people started moving out, and I didn’t blame them.
Then the [General Motors] Hamtramck plant closed and the rest of the people moved out because they lost their houses.
All the younger people are gone, one or two older people are still here.
I’m not gonna try and run with the rest of them, I just want to plant some food. Every time a house comes down I try to dig it out and plant some food, so that’s how I started.
When I first came over here I had a garden in the backyard, and when people started moving out, I started one lot, then moved on to the next lot, and I kept at it.
I found out that tomatoes will grow anywhere. I don’t care what kind of dirt you put tomatoes in, they will grow. String beans and okra will grow anywhere, and lima beans and peas.
- Our Founder, Edith
At MONW, we strive to promote safety and wellbeing, beautify urban neighborhoods and eliminate blight by creating green space, planting community gardens, and providing housing rehabiltation activities. These initiatives add up to our one main mission: reinvigorating prosperity and serenity in the city of Detroit.
We hope to reinvigorate the abandoned lots of Detroit neighborhods with the following goals: providing housing rehabiltation, welcoming the community with beauty and serenity, attracting natural habitat and bringing more life to the area, promoting economic development/fighting poverty, and increasing the number of safe, green spaces in the city.
Edith Floyd
Founder & President
Event Lead, Communications
Edith Floyd, 75, has been living in the Mount Olivet neighborhood for over half a century. She's been through its prosperity and decay. For over thirty years, she has been gardening in the deserted neighborhoods of Detroit, turning vacant plots of land into flourishing farms and urban decay into quality community spaces. She founded MONW in 1994 and has since reinvigorated countless vacant lots in Detroit.
Edith Floyd
Detroit MI, USA
More than 494 hours of volunteering in gardening services, grant meetings, community event organization, etc in the year of 2023.
Angela Mann
USA
More than 118 hours of volunteering in gardening services, organizational meetings, etc in the year of 2023.
Shannon Dailey
USA
More than 113 hours of volunteering with the MONW and Growing Joy Garden in the year of 2023.
Volunteers from the General Motors CARE Program
Warren MI, USA
More than 50 hours of garden volunteering with MONW from volunteers in the GM CARE Program during fall and winter of 2023.
Augosto Lopez
USA
More than 30 hours of garden volunteering with MONW and the Growing Joy Garden in fall 2023.
A federally registered 501(c)(3) non-profit organization
Contact Us at (313) 930-0180
Website Developed By Helen Wang. Copyright © 2024.
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