Eli’s Garden of Healing Fosters Community Healing and Violence Prevention

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Thank you for listening to I HeartCommunities. If you'd like to be a
guest or know someone who would liketo be a part of this program,
you can email Community Access at iHeartMediadot com. We're here with the charity
that we met earlier this summer atthe Travelers Championship, but we thought it
was important enough to share some moreinformation about them as we are doing this
interview on site with Eli's Garden ofHealing. Their co founders are Crystal Cathcart

(00:23):
and Kyle Zukowskis. Thank you bothfor returning and doing this interview. Thank
you so much for having us.So what I'd like you to do is
tell me a little bit about Eli'sGarden of Healing and starting with Eli and
that personal connection to you. Crystal, Great, Yeah, thank you.
So Elijah Gomez was my nephew.He was fifteen years old and he was
walking home from high school and wasshot and killed on his way home from

(00:46):
school. About a month after that, we decided to start a nonprofit as
his legacy. So we will becreating a healing garden in our hometown of
Hampden, Connecticut for people impacted byviolence, and it's at an existing park,
Dinacola Park in Hamden where this communityresource will be located. And this
is actually in honor of him walkinghome from school in Hamden fifteen years old.

(01:15):
I mean, doing something so averagein normal and every day we've all
done this, just walking home.And he was a kid who wasn't in
trouble. He was a kid whowas just an innocent bystander. Tell me
about Eli. Yeah, So onthat day when he was walking home from
school, three strange men had followedhim on his walk and shot him behind

(01:40):
him and ran away. The policeidentified him because of his homework in his
backpack. It was horribly tragic forour family. He was a great,
loving kid, very charitable, wouldgo and do events with us all the
time at local landtrast He was amember of the local high school football team,
loved to be outside playing sports andjust a generally kind and kids to

(02:00):
be around. Did they ever discoveror reveal the reason behind this? Is
there any closure for the family.We don't know a reason. However,
the person who shot him has beenarrested and he just pled guilty in court.
This happened two years ago and justjust actually this week he pled guilty
in court to the murder. Soat the time of this recording, you're

(02:23):
going to be listening to this laterduring the summer on iHeart Community. So
in June, this criminal That's whyI pleaded guilty in and still no reason.
Still still nothing for the family,Still no reason. But it does
give us comfort to know that wedon't have to prove in court that this
happened. He admitted guilt and thatgives us some closure. Yeah, you
know, and talk about I mean, this was this was to your sister,

(02:44):
this was this was her son.And and Kyle, what was your
relationship. I'm Crystal's fiance, Okay, his nephew, my nephew as well.
He was a great kid. Hegrew up without a father figure in
his life, so I was reallyhappy to fill that role. You know,
you hear these stories every single day, and I think, and I

(03:04):
will speak very very candidly with you, when you hear these stories about shootings,
you almost don't put a person ora face behind the story. You
just hear, oh, another shooting. Oh another You don't say another person
or another kid. You say,oh another shooting, oh another mass shooting.
You don't identify because we've become soit's almost like that orange alert syndrome.
Right. But then when you sitdown and you talk with people,
especially here right here in Hamden,Connecticut, such a big organ big part

(03:29):
of our radio stations as well,having one of our few of our sister
stations in located right in Hamden.Right, when when you hear this story,
when you hear about Elijah Eli,right, I hope that it's changing
some some people's perspective on gun violenceand what we need to do. And
again, this is not a politicalprogram. We're not We're not talking about
that right now. We're talking abouta real life and family members because it's

(03:52):
not just the loss of life tothe beloved family member, it's the trickle
down effect to your to your family, that's right. And one thing that's
brought me a lot of comfort isthe overwhelming support from our community. We
had unanimous approval from our legislative councilto use the site we're going to be
making the healing Garden at everyone throughoutour local mayor's office. Just an overwhelming

(04:15):
amount of support in the schools andthroughout the whole community. All Right,
Well, let's talk about Eli's Gardenof healing Now before we go any further,
if you're listening right now and youwant to get more information, how
you can help and support. Wherecan people directly go to help fund this
mission? Eli's Garden of Healing dotcom. That's so easy. You made
it, You made it not complicated, Eli's Garden of Healing dot com.

(04:36):
Correct, even I can get that. And what do you hope this garden
to be? Yeah, so wehave been given permission to use one point
seven acres of land on this propertyis an old Winchester. Winchester built guns
in New Haven, right outside ofthe town we live it and in Hampden
they would test the firing capacity oftheir guns. There's an old concrete tunnel

(04:59):
in an existing park. It runsthrough the whole property that we're gonna be
able to convert into a healing gardenfor people impacted by violence. We're gonna
take inspiration from the Highline in NewYork City, going on top of this
old industrial structure off of the groundand turning it into a garden an unexpected
place, and I love that it'sa healing garden of any sort. Whatever

(05:21):
your healing needs to be, whateveryou need to get from these gardens.
This is in place even if youjust need a moment of serenity or calm
or place to go and sit,read a book, or write your thoughts,
or or maybe you've been impacted bygun violence or domestic violence or violence
of any sort. Right, thisis a place where anybody can go and

(05:41):
heal. What a beautiful tribute toyour nephew. Thank you. One thing
we're very excited about. Most gardensare traditionally in big, open, sunny
green spaces. This is gonna bea woodland garden, and when you go
in the woods, it's so muchcooler, calming, and it's gonna be
a beautiful resource for our community togo and find that place of serenity and
hope and inspiration. Tell me aboutthe project and the ground baked breaking,

(06:04):
and there is some significance to ifwe raise enough money to the groundbreaking,
right, that's right, Yes,So the project is about a two million
dollar project and we are going tobe making it a handicap accessible location.
We're hoping to take into consideration thingslike sensory accessibility. There's a lot of
different people who have been impacted byviolence, different population groups that we really

(06:28):
want to make sure we're designing thespace to be accessible for so one of
our big goals right now is topresent a plan to our town of exactly
what we want the space to looklike. And that plan is going to
be informed by hundreds and hundreds offeedback comments from our community members. Right
now, we're doing tree health studieson the trees in the woods. We
want to keep as many of thetrees as a lot of work here.

(06:50):
Yeah, it's a lot of workand it's going to be worth it every
single drop. So it will beworth it. It's going to be amazing
long standing resource for our community.And don't forget about that. The meeting
of twenty twenty five, which it'sheartbreaking and I guess beautiful too at the
same time, if people can understandwhat we're saying here. Yeah, so

(07:11):
Elijah was in the class of twentytwenty five at Hampden High School. We
really want to have a groundbreaking intime for those high school students to leave
our town, go off to collegeand know that there's some real, meaningful
work being done in our community tobring some sort of justice and legacy to
the life of Elijah Gomez. Andhe he has so many friends that he's
touched a live up that I'm sureare going to be so grateful for this

(07:33):
place to go to because I meanhe was fifteen. I mean this is
still new, this is still raw. He's got classmates that he would have
been graduating with that they're all goingto be there for him in honor and
in memory of him at Eli's Gardenof Healing once again, How can we
find you directly online and through socialmedia platforms. Sure, Eli's Garden of
Healing dot Com is our website.We are very active on Instagram, Facebook

(07:56):
and LinkedIn, so if you wantto follow us on any of those channels,
I see all sorts of great updateson the project. We also do
a lot of events out in thecommunity, taking people out in our nature
wellness and connecting with people impacted byviolence. Now, we don't need the
Garden to start bringing healing to peopletoday. If you both could could answer
this question, Okay and Krystal,I am going to start with you,

(08:18):
But you know now that we havethe attention of so many radio stations,
of so many people listening here tothis particular program which runs at all hours
of the day. What are someneeds right now as we're heading into you
know, obviously we're thinking about summerright now, but we're heading into fall
and you've got a timeline, andyou've got a groundbreaking ceremony, you've got
a plan for you've got real dollarsthat you need to get. What are

(08:39):
some things right now? If youcould put an ask out there to the
general public and the greater Handin andNew Haven communities, what are some things
you are looking for? Are theirvolunteers, supplies, ar borisk things like
that. What would you like toask for? Yeah, so tree health
is incredibly important. Experts in thetree health space really helps us to make
the community comfortable knowing that we're retaininghealthy, quality trees on the site.

(09:03):
There's a lot of down trees,so we need to be able to communicate
that we're looking to raise about twentythousand dollars to cover really important fees that
we have for things like tree healthstudies, site surveys, and all of
the busy testing and studies that weneed to do to present a very clear
plan to the town. That kindof work isn't typically covered by grants.

(09:24):
We hope the large project will becovered by grants, but there's immediate expenses
today that we're paying for to presentas clear of a plan to our town
as possible in Kyle. Yeah,two million dollars is a lot of money.
So that's a big ask from thecommunity. If I had it in
my pocket, i'd give it toyou right now. But what smaller donations
really help us do is continue ourefforts in the community to stay present,

(09:46):
stay out there, and show peoplewhat we can do. Because we've been
doing some great things the last twoyears. So even those donations that are
less than two million dollars go along way with us. And can I
just ask you something, And Iknow I'm going to be putting you on
the spot, but I mean thisis you know, Crystal's nephew by blood,
which honestly doesn't mean anything. Ihave so many nieces and nephews.

(10:07):
I mean family's family. Family looksvery different today, right, yes,
but as sort of you know,the uncle coming in, the fiance coming
in and taking Ela under your wing. Can you tell me what it was
like to watch this to your family, right and to let people know that
this violence trickles down to everybody andeven to friends and new family members.

(10:28):
Right, Yeah, it's been Itwas absolutely heartbreaking. I mean I knew
Elijah since he was about four,so I knew him for about eleven year.
Uncle grow up and I was excitedto continue to see him grow up
and become an adult. And therest of my family, my blood family,
was excited for that too. Soto watch this event unfold, it
was heartbreaking for everybody. And what'ssome advice because people never know what to

(10:52):
say? I think, and Ithink sometimes that also isolates people from the
people that are going through an experienceand who who need people. Right,
So do you have any suggests,like what did you where did you find
your inspiration to say anything of comfortto anybody? What would you say?
It's to not be afraid to talkwith people about it. People like Krystal
and I we want to talk aboutElijah, we really do. We want

(11:13):
to talk about the loved ones thatwe've lost. It it's a great comfort
for us. So if you knowsomething, talk with them. They really
appreciate it. We really appreciate it, and we really appreciate being on this
program. Right, don't shy o. And you know what that is really
the answer. I'm so glad yousaid that because so many people who I've
been blessed to meet in this programbut who have had unfortunate circumstance happened to

(11:35):
them say that same answer. Don'tbe afraid to bring up the name of
the person, because it keeps theirmemory alive. It keeps them alive,
It shows that they matter, andthat the person's or or a person who
did the act of violence or evildoesn't matter, right, and it makes
Elijah as relevant and vibrant as ifhe were here with us today. Correct.

(11:56):
Yeah, absolutely, I'm so honoredto have met but both of you,
thank you, Thank you so much. All Right, So I am
I'm gonna let you get the lastword in here. If people want to
support Eli's Garden of Healing, Iknow they're based in Hampden, the New
Haven community, the Hampden community,but this is going to be a statewide
UH park open to everybody for healingof all kinds. So again, where
can we find you? Elisgarden ofHealing dot com. Thank you both so

(12:20):
much. Crystal Cathcart, the president, and Kyle zukowskis treasurer and both co
founders of Eli's Garden of Healing.Thank you. For being a part of
iHeart communities. Thank you