Michael Watkins just finished doing something he’s never done — building a community garden.
He’s one of three crew members with ReGrowth, an employment program for members of the community who have been involved with the justice system, focused on ages 19 to 25.
“This project, it reminded me about my life, how I’m regrowing,” Watkins said. “I’m getting my garden together, how I had to get out some weeds. I’m trying to produce some things to become fruit for my life.”
The new Palmer Street Community Garden, 1634 Palmer St., is nestled within the southeast side of the Fountain Square neighborhood.
The group spent nine weeks turning an abandoned, grassy lot into a flourishing greenspace. They excavated the ground and removed old bricks. Meadowlark Nativescapes helped design the garden and helped them purchase flowers at a bargain. Then, ReGrowth crew members spent weeks excavating the ground by hand, building flower boxes and sowing 750 native plants.
The team built the garden’s infrastructure. The Fountain Square Alliance will work with local churches to take over vegetable gardening and maintenance in spring 2027.
Here’s how it works
The initiative is overseen by Southeast Neighborhood Development. Crew members are contract employees through Keys2Work, a workforce development company. Crew members receive a minimum $16/hour for four to five hours a day, three days a week.
But the crew learned more than just gardening skills. They received workforce development coaching on Wednesdays through Southeast Community Services, focused on financial literacy, mock interviews and resumes.
The connection allowed a crew member, who goes by YB, to accomplish her goal of receiving her commercial drivers license. Southeast Community Services paid off her parking tickets so she could move through the application process.
“I never had that type of help with resources like that before, so they actually helped me,” YB said. “They did it within like two days.”
The program started with more participants, but some left as they applied the skills they learned to earn full-time jobs in local warehouses and provide flood disaster relief with the Department of Public Works.
The team also had Fun Fridays, which began as a lunch-and-learn before they became informational field trips around the city. Sessions included learning about birding in Eagle Creek, urban farming at Broganville’s Farm and civic engagement and the state’s Black history at the Indiana State Museum.
“Trying to get them outside of their comfort zones, but also exposing them to things that they’d never been exposed to,” said Lacia Coons, garden supervisor.
Future of the program
The ReGrowth program was also held in 2023 and 2024, supporting existing community gardens in Bates Hendricks, Fountain Square, Fountain Fletcher, Norwood and Hannah Commons.
Southeast Neighborhood Development needs at least $50,000 annually to run the program. The program was funded in 2026 by Local Initiatives Support Corporation Indianapolis, a community development organization, but Southeast Neighborhood Development paused the program in 2025 due to a lack of funding.
Glenn Johnson, executive vice president for Keys2Work, hopes Southeast Neighborhood Development will have the cash to bring the program back again in 2027 for crew members and communities.
“It’s something that’s not only beneficial to the population we serve, but all young adults,” Johnson said. “Or even teenagers or young kids, to be able to actually experience something like this in their communities. Especially when living in a thriving inner city, you kind of lose sight of nature.”
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Mirror Indy reporter Elizabeth Gabriel covers the south side of Marion County. Contact her at elizabeth.gabriel@mirrorindy.org. Follow her on X at @_elizabethgabs.
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