May 10, 2025 • 12 mins
We spoke with President Crystal Zukauskas about developing safer communities by serving anyone who has been affected by violence.
Eli's Garden of Healing is involved in the Travelers Championship Birdies for Charity program. Thanks to the support of Webster Bank, organizations have the opportunity to receive a 15% bonus on every donation through the program with no credit card or administration fees...so please donate!
Eli's Garden of Healing is involved in the Travelers Championship Birdies for Charity program. Thanks to the support of Webster Bank, organizations have the opportunity to receive a 15% bonus on every donation through the program with no credit card or administration fees...so please donate!
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Good morning, Thank you for listening to Community Access. I'm
speaking with Crystal zukowskis president of Eli's Garden of Healing.
They happened to be one of the charities for Birdie's
for Charity through the TPC and if you'd like to
make a donation, they're going to get one hundred percent
of it, plus a fifteen percent bonus of every dollar
(00:20):
raised from Webster Bank. Good morning, Yeah, good morning, Crystal,
Eli's Garden of Healing. How did that come about?
Speaker 2 (00:28):
Yeah, so thank you for having us on the program.
We are a nonprofit based out of Hamden and we
were founded in twenty twenty two. My nephew, my sister's son,
Elijah Gomez, was walking home from high school middle of
the afternoon on a nice popular jogging track in town.
(00:49):
It actually runs up through the state the Farmington Canal line,
and three strangers walked up behind him, shot him and
ran away. He had just turned fifteen years old and
he didn't know these people. It was a random act
of violence, and we lost our best friend, my sister's son,
my nephew. And in the aftermath of that, as our
(01:12):
community was mourning, we decided to take.
Speaker 3 (01:15):
All of the love and generosity that.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
He had and put it into a nonprofit and let
his compassion live on through the work that we're doing at.
Speaker 3 (01:25):
Eli's Garden of Healing.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
So that was really our origin story and how we
started as a nonprofit. And so we're about going on
three years. Actually this Friday this week will be the
three year anniversary of when he was killed. So we're
just shy of three years old as a nonprofit.
Speaker 1 (01:43):
I'm so sorry for your loss.
Speaker 3 (01:45):
Thank you. It's been really challenging.
Speaker 2 (01:48):
Just this past weekend, we celebrated his eighteenth birthday, what
would have been his eighteenth birthday with our community and
state reps came and a state senator came, and it
was a really beautiful way for us all to come
together and just recognize, you know, it's a really nice,
nice kid that we all had in our lives.
Speaker 1 (02:05):
What was Eli or Elijah like?
Speaker 2 (02:08):
Oh, gosh, Elijah loved sports. He he played football on
the Hampden High football team. We would joke that he
had no breaks, he would run too far, but he
was he was developing his skills as a football player.
He loves basketball and all sports. Really, he loved to
be outside. He really loved gardening and nature and and
(02:30):
just being outdoors in nature. That was his his big thing.
Whether it was playing sports, hanging out with friends, hanging
out in the garden with us. He loved to be outside.
He loved to be by water and by birds, and
that was really where he was most comfortable, was sitting
out in the sun and nature.
Speaker 1 (02:50):
The healing garden. Is it flowers, is it vegetables? What
kind of garden would it be?
Speaker 2 (02:55):
Yeah, So we have a really unique opportunity here in Hamden.
Just next door in new Haven, Winchester used to be
in operations producing guns, and so they are now no
longer in the region. Some of the old buildings are
still around in new Haven and in Hamden where I live.
(03:16):
They would test the weapons, they would store gunpowder and
so half a century ago there was an old machine
gun test firing range that they would use to test
the firing capacity of the weapons they were producing. It's
in the woods at a local park, completely abandoned, lost
the time, all sorts of trees and buying some things
(03:37):
growing on top of it. But it's this big concrete
structure in the woods that we are going to transform
into a woodland. Healing garden. So it's going to be
unique in the sense that it won't be a sunny
field with flowers, but more of a woodland garden with
lots of native woodland plants.
Speaker 3 (03:54):
And we are going to transform it.
Speaker 2 (03:56):
If you think about the high Line in New York
City up on top of train tracks, where you're walking
on this beautiful boardwalk decking with seats and plants, that's
the inspiration that we want to bring to this structure.
It's a long concrete tunnel that we will be building
on top of, so folks won't go inside of it,
but it's like a big concrete block through the woods
(04:18):
that we are going to create ramping to get up
on top of trails in the woods and make a
really beautiful woodland space. One of the things that I
like most about going back there is we're transforming this
thing that would have been made to test weapons that
would harm and kill people into a place of healing
and peace and comfort and calm for the community, for
(04:39):
people impacted by all forms of violence. And if you
think about the energy that you feel and when these
topics come up, you know, it heats you up a
little bit. Your heart starts to race, and when you're
in the woods, the temperature is so much cooler. We
hear the sounds of the birds, and the trees kind
of blowing in the wind, and the branches, you know,
rubbing up against each other. Just such a.
Speaker 3 (05:00):
Calming feeling when you're in the woods. And to be
able to transform this space and have such a unique
setting for people to come and visit is really special
to us.
Speaker 1 (05:10):
Absolutely a beautiful way to honor him.
Speaker 2 (05:13):
Yeah, and what's really sweet is my sister, Elijah's mother
lives directly next door, so when this is built, she'll
be able to walk outside of her house with a
cup of tea and have.
Speaker 3 (05:22):
This at her doorsteps.
Speaker 2 (05:24):
For folks that know Olize's story, this structure, it runs
parallel with the road he was killed half a mile
from where he lived, so it actually runs parallel with
the part of the walk he never finished that day,
So folks will be able to go up on top
of this structure with the boardwalk decking and walk those
steps that basically represent the steps she should have been
(05:44):
taking that day going home from school.
Speaker 1 (05:46):
Did they ever catch the person who did this?
Speaker 3 (05:48):
They did, Yeah, there were three men involved.
Speaker 2 (05:52):
The person that actually shot him, was arrested and sentenced
to thirty five years in jail with no chance of parole.
He told the police he didn't know Elijah. Whatever was
going on, it was about him and not about my nephew.
You know, it gives us peace and comfort knowing that
he wasn't, you know, instigating the situation anyway. There was
(06:14):
no fight there, he wasn't robbed. It was just a
random act of violence. And luckily, because it was on
the canal line where it happened, the businesses there had
cameras that documented the entire incident, so there was really
no question of who was involved, what happened. It was
all pretty clearly laid out. And it gives us some
(06:34):
comfort knowing that he was just in this slimly walking
down the street with headphones on.
Speaker 3 (06:39):
He never never even.
Speaker 2 (06:41):
Saw it coming.
Speaker 1 (06:43):
Nothing worse than losing a child. Yeah, I'm so sorry.
So besides the Garden of Healing, you also have programs
and events. Tell us about those.
Speaker 2 (06:54):
Yeah, so I mentioned that Elijah was a football player.
The first program we started is called Elias Cleats. We
donate money to the schools athletic departments. So if there's
a student in need who can't afford the gear that
they need to play in school sports. We make donations
through Eli's cleats to four local schools. We just gave
out donations over the weekend at his birthday party to
(07:17):
our newest school joining the programs, and now we have
four schools that are able to help their student athletes
get the gear that they need to stay on the field.
It's our way of keeping his name in the locker.
Speaker 4 (07:27):
Room and on the fields, and it.
Speaker 2 (07:29):
Brings us a lot of joy knowing that we're helping
so many kids. That program has already infused forty eight
hundred dollars worth of support for student athletes in our
community over the two and a half years we've been
doing it. We also really find that our Strengths is
a nonprofit in the violence prevention through healing are connecting
(07:49):
with the community. So we do programs focused on art,
nature and wellness where we bring people out to local
parks for either hikes or art activities and just work
to build community and give people a chance to come
together in ways that they're able to talk about how
they're feeling if they're comfortable with that, or participate in
(08:09):
activities that let them work through things in ways that
they feel comfortable with. So art, nature and wellness are
really are programming tracks for all of the activities that
we do all year round, and that's really special to
us to be able to work with people today. Even
though we don't have the garden up and running, we can.
Speaker 3 (08:27):
Still make a great impact in our community right now.
Speaker 1 (08:32):
So last weekend you also had an event. Tell me
about that.
Speaker 4 (08:35):
Yeah, So last weekend would have been Elijah's eighteenth birthday.
We had the community come together. It was a fun
party in the park, Lively celebration. We have a bounce house, DJ, face,
painter art and one of the really cool things we
were able to do we borrowed the high school marching
bands conductor podium and brought it out into the woods
(08:56):
where we're going to be making this healing garden. To
let our support and our friends connect with our vision.
They were able to go up on top of this
conductor podium and see just how long this firing range was,
how wide it was. The top of it is about
as wide as a two way street, So if you
think about crossing a road with two directions of travel,
(09:18):
that's a pretty wide amount of space. That we're going
to be able to transform into this highline inspired healing garden,
and so it was a really nice way to have
our community come out, the folks who've been supporting our
organization and see for themselves this unique property that we're
going to be transforming into a healing garden. One thing
(09:39):
that was really special at this event we had our
state reps and a local state senator who represent the
town that I live in, who gave us a very
nice state citation from the Connecticut General Assembly honoring his
eighteenth birthday, and it was a really special way to
feel that sense of community and togetherness and every by
(10:00):
appreciating and understanding that this was a life that was
taken in a very senseless, tragic way, and to feel
that at the state level, and to have all of
our neighbors coming to the celebration for his birthday was
a really nice way to gather, especially as we approach
the three year anniversary of his death.
Speaker 1 (10:18):
I'm speaking with Crystal zukowskis, president of Eli's Garden of Healing,
to hear more about them. You can go to eli'sgardenof
Healing dot com. They're one of the organizations involved in
the Birdie's for Charity. So for every dollar raised, Webster
Bank is going to donate fifteen cents. So please make
a donation and people can go to either your website
(10:40):
or Travelers Championship Slash Birdie's Dash four Dash Charity in
order to donate.
Speaker 4 (10:46):
Yeah, we have a link right on Elisgarden of Healing
dot com right at the top of our page. No
matter what page you go on, it's part of our header.
Right now, you see a bright red box to go
to Birdiees for Charity and get that fifteen percent donation.
One of the really cool things about Birdie's for Charity.
Last year we did this program and we raised seventy
five hundred dollars. So Webster matches a fifteen percent match.
(11:11):
So for every dollar someone donates, we get a dollar fifteen,
So we're getting fifteen extra cents. But as a nonprofit,
especially a small nonprofit, when you make a donation and
it typically says will you cover the transaction fees and
the donor is paying like three dollars or four dollars
or whatever it is to cover credit card processing fees,
that gets expensive. Some people cover it, some people don't, right,
(11:35):
So sometimes we absorb those fees. Birdie's for Charity actually
covers the transaction costs, so the donor isn't absorbing annoying
credit card processing fees.
Speaker 2 (11:45):
Neither are we.
Speaker 4 (11:46):
Plus we get fifteen percent on top of every dollar,
so a dollar becomes a dollar fifteen and there's no
extra fees that either the donor or our organization have
to pay to get those funds. It's a really wonderful
program and we're so excited to be in our second year.
Speaker 1 (12:02):
Thank you so much for being here today, Christalan, for
sharing your story and for doing amazing work in the community.
Speaker 4 (12:08):
Yeah, thank you so much. It's great to be here,
and good luck to all of the charities participating. It's
a wonderful program and so good for our community. Travelers
gets back in such a nice way through this program.
So I hope your listeners get to hear a lot
of really great stories from the different nonprofits participating and
help us get the funds that we need to continue
(12:28):
to operate.
Good morning, Thank you for listening to Community Access. I'm
speaking with Crystal zukowskis president of Eli's Garden of Healing.
They happened to be one of the charities for Birdie's
for Charity through the TPC and if you'd like to
make a donation, they're going to get one hundred percent
of it, plus a fifteen percent bonus of every dollar
(00:20):
raised from Webster Bank. Good morning, Yeah, good morning, Crystal,
Eli's Garden of Healing. How did that come about?
Speaker 2 (00:28):
Yeah, so thank you for having us on the program.
We are a nonprofit based out of Hamden and we
were founded in twenty twenty two. My nephew, my sister's son,
Elijah Gomez, was walking home from high school middle of
the afternoon on a nice popular jogging track in town.
(00:49):
It actually runs up through the state the Farmington Canal line,
and three strangers walked up behind him, shot him and
ran away. He had just turned fifteen years old and
he didn't know these people. It was a random act
of violence, and we lost our best friend, my sister's son,
my nephew. And in the aftermath of that, as our
(01:12):
community was mourning, we decided to take.
Speaker 3 (01:15):
All of the love and generosity that.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
He had and put it into a nonprofit and let
his compassion live on through the work that we're doing at.
Speaker 3 (01:25):
Eli's Garden of Healing.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
So that was really our origin story and how we
started as a nonprofit. And so we're about going on
three years. Actually this Friday this week will be the
three year anniversary of when he was killed. So we're
just shy of three years old as a nonprofit.
Speaker 1 (01:43):
I'm so sorry for your loss.
Speaker 3 (01:45):
Thank you. It's been really challenging.
Speaker 2 (01:48):
Just this past weekend, we celebrated his eighteenth birthday, what
would have been his eighteenth birthday with our community and
state reps came and a state senator came, and it
was a really beautiful way for us all to come
together and just recognize, you know, it's a really nice,
nice kid that we all had in our lives.
Speaker 1 (02:05):
What was Eli or Elijah like?
Speaker 2 (02:08):
Oh, gosh, Elijah loved sports. He he played football on
the Hampden High football team. We would joke that he
had no breaks, he would run too far, but he
was he was developing his skills as a football player.
He loves basketball and all sports. Really, he loved to
be outside. He really loved gardening and nature and and
(02:30):
just being outdoors in nature. That was his his big thing.
Whether it was playing sports, hanging out with friends, hanging
out in the garden with us. He loved to be outside.
He loved to be by water and by birds, and
that was really where he was most comfortable, was sitting
out in the sun and nature.
Speaker 1 (02:50):
The healing garden. Is it flowers, is it vegetables? What
kind of garden would it be?
Speaker 2 (02:55):
Yeah, So we have a really unique opportunity here in Hamden.
Just next door in new Haven, Winchester used to be
in operations producing guns, and so they are now no
longer in the region. Some of the old buildings are
still around in new Haven and in Hamden where I live.
(03:16):
They would test the weapons, they would store gunpowder and
so half a century ago there was an old machine
gun test firing range that they would use to test
the firing capacity of the weapons they were producing. It's
in the woods at a local park, completely abandoned, lost
the time, all sorts of trees and buying some things
(03:37):
growing on top of it. But it's this big concrete
structure in the woods that we are going to transform
into a woodland. Healing garden. So it's going to be
unique in the sense that it won't be a sunny
field with flowers, but more of a woodland garden with
lots of native woodland plants.
Speaker 3 (03:54):
And we are going to transform it.
Speaker 2 (03:56):
If you think about the high Line in New York
City up on top of train tracks, where you're walking
on this beautiful boardwalk decking with seats and plants, that's
the inspiration that we want to bring to this structure.
It's a long concrete tunnel that we will be building
on top of, so folks won't go inside of it,
but it's like a big concrete block through the woods
(04:18):
that we are going to create ramping to get up
on top of trails in the woods and make a
really beautiful woodland space. One of the things that I
like most about going back there is we're transforming this
thing that would have been made to test weapons that
would harm and kill people into a place of healing
and peace and comfort and calm for the community, for
(04:39):
people impacted by all forms of violence. And if you
think about the energy that you feel and when these
topics come up, you know, it heats you up a
little bit. Your heart starts to race, and when you're
in the woods, the temperature is so much cooler. We
hear the sounds of the birds, and the trees kind
of blowing in the wind, and the branches, you know,
rubbing up against each other. Just such a.
Speaker 3 (05:00):
Calming feeling when you're in the woods. And to be
able to transform this space and have such a unique
setting for people to come and visit is really special
to us.
Speaker 1 (05:10):
Absolutely a beautiful way to honor him.
Speaker 2 (05:13):
Yeah, and what's really sweet is my sister, Elijah's mother
lives directly next door, so when this is built, she'll
be able to walk outside of her house with a
cup of tea and have.
Speaker 3 (05:22):
This at her doorsteps.
Speaker 2 (05:24):
For folks that know Olize's story, this structure, it runs
parallel with the road he was killed half a mile
from where he lived, so it actually runs parallel with
the part of the walk he never finished that day,
So folks will be able to go up on top
of this structure with the boardwalk decking and walk those
steps that basically represent the steps she should have been
(05:44):
taking that day going home from school.
Speaker 1 (05:46):
Did they ever catch the person who did this?
Speaker 3 (05:48):
They did, Yeah, there were three men involved.
Speaker 2 (05:52):
The person that actually shot him, was arrested and sentenced
to thirty five years in jail with no chance of parole.
He told the police he didn't know Elijah. Whatever was
going on, it was about him and not about my nephew.
You know, it gives us peace and comfort knowing that
he wasn't, you know, instigating the situation anyway. There was
(06:14):
no fight there, he wasn't robbed. It was just a
random act of violence. And luckily, because it was on
the canal line where it happened, the businesses there had
cameras that documented the entire incident, so there was really
no question of who was involved, what happened. It was
all pretty clearly laid out. And it gives us some
(06:34):
comfort knowing that he was just in this slimly walking
down the street with headphones on.
Speaker 3 (06:39):
He never never even.
Speaker 2 (06:41):
Saw it coming.
Speaker 1 (06:43):
Nothing worse than losing a child. Yeah, I'm so sorry.
So besides the Garden of Healing, you also have programs
and events. Tell us about those.
Speaker 2 (06:54):
Yeah, so I mentioned that Elijah was a football player.
The first program we started is called Elias Cleats. We
donate money to the schools athletic departments. So if there's
a student in need who can't afford the gear that
they need to play in school sports. We make donations
through Eli's cleats to four local schools. We just gave
out donations over the weekend at his birthday party to
(07:17):
our newest school joining the programs, and now we have
four schools that are able to help their student athletes
get the gear that they need to stay on the field.
It's our way of keeping his name in the locker.
Speaker 4 (07:27):
Room and on the fields, and it.
Speaker 2 (07:29):
Brings us a lot of joy knowing that we're helping
so many kids. That program has already infused forty eight
hundred dollars worth of support for student athletes in our
community over the two and a half years we've been
doing it. We also really find that our Strengths is
a nonprofit in the violence prevention through healing are connecting
(07:49):
with the community. So we do programs focused on art,
nature and wellness where we bring people out to local
parks for either hikes or art activities and just work
to build community and give people a chance to come
together in ways that they're able to talk about how
they're feeling if they're comfortable with that, or participate in
(08:09):
activities that let them work through things in ways that
they feel comfortable with. So art, nature and wellness are
really are programming tracks for all of the activities that
we do all year round, and that's really special to
us to be able to work with people today. Even
though we don't have the garden up and running, we can.
Speaker 3 (08:27):
Still make a great impact in our community right now.
Speaker 1 (08:32):
So last weekend you also had an event. Tell me
about that.
Speaker 4 (08:35):
Yeah, So last weekend would have been Elijah's eighteenth birthday.
We had the community come together. It was a fun
party in the park, Lively celebration. We have a bounce house, DJ, face,
painter art and one of the really cool things we
were able to do we borrowed the high school marching
bands conductor podium and brought it out into the woods
(08:56):
where we're going to be making this healing garden. To
let our support and our friends connect with our vision.
They were able to go up on top of this
conductor podium and see just how long this firing range was,
how wide it was. The top of it is about
as wide as a two way street, So if you
think about crossing a road with two directions of travel,
(09:18):
that's a pretty wide amount of space. That we're going
to be able to transform into this highline inspired healing garden,
and so it was a really nice way to have
our community come out, the folks who've been supporting our
organization and see for themselves this unique property that we're
going to be transforming into a healing garden. One thing
(09:39):
that was really special at this event we had our
state reps and a local state senator who represent the
town that I live in, who gave us a very
nice state citation from the Connecticut General Assembly honoring his
eighteenth birthday, and it was a really special way to
feel that sense of community and togetherness and every by
(10:00):
appreciating and understanding that this was a life that was
taken in a very senseless, tragic way, and to feel
that at the state level, and to have all of
our neighbors coming to the celebration for his birthday was
a really nice way to gather, especially as we approach
the three year anniversary of his death.
Speaker 1 (10:18):
I'm speaking with Crystal zukowskis, president of Eli's Garden of Healing,
to hear more about them. You can go to eli'sgardenof
Healing dot com. They're one of the organizations involved in
the Birdie's for Charity. So for every dollar raised, Webster
Bank is going to donate fifteen cents. So please make
a donation and people can go to either your website
(10:40):
or Travelers Championship Slash Birdie's Dash four Dash Charity in
order to donate.
Speaker 4 (10:46):
Yeah, we have a link right on Elisgarden of Healing
dot com right at the top of our page. No
matter what page you go on, it's part of our header.
Right now, you see a bright red box to go
to Birdiees for Charity and get that fifteen percent donation.
One of the really cool things about Birdie's for Charity.
Last year we did this program and we raised seventy
five hundred dollars. So Webster matches a fifteen percent match.
(11:11):
So for every dollar someone donates, we get a dollar fifteen,
So we're getting fifteen extra cents. But as a nonprofit,
especially a small nonprofit, when you make a donation and
it typically says will you cover the transaction fees and
the donor is paying like three dollars or four dollars
or whatever it is to cover credit card processing fees,
that gets expensive. Some people cover it, some people don't, right,
(11:35):
So sometimes we absorb those fees. Birdie's for Charity actually
covers the transaction costs, so the donor isn't absorbing annoying
credit card processing fees.
Speaker 2 (11:45):
Neither are we.
Speaker 4 (11:46):
Plus we get fifteen percent on top of every dollar,
so a dollar becomes a dollar fifteen and there's no
extra fees that either the donor or our organization have
to pay to get those funds. It's a really wonderful
program and we're so excited to be in our second year.
Speaker 1 (12:02):
Thank you so much for being here today, Christalan, for
sharing your story and for doing amazing work in the community.
Speaker 4 (12:08):
Yeah, thank you so much. It's great to be here,
and good luck to all of the charities participating. It's
a wonderful program and so good for our community. Travelers
gets back in such a nice way through this program.
So I hope your listeners get to hear a lot
of really great stories from the different nonprofits participating and
help us get the funds that we need to continue
(12:28):
to operate.
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