Community garden to revitalize Ranch Oak neighborhood

LAWTON, OK (KSWO) - This weekend, an empty lot in a south Lawton neighborhood will start looking more like a garden. The groundbreaking for the Ranch Oak community garden will take place this Saturday. It is the first part of a year-long plan for the Ranch Oak neighborhood.

The community-based group Revols’ main goal is to bring life to the Ranch Oak neighborhood. But one member in particular just wanted to learn how to garden and grow her own food. Then the rest of the plan just fell in place.

Shauna Bradley has a plan for the empty lot in Ranch Oak. Using her new-found interest in gardening along with the leaders in Revols, the Ranch Oak community garden is coming together.

"I mean it's beautiful,” said Bradley. “It's always a beautiful thing whenever you just see a group of people being able to make use of something that was only an idea a few months ago.”

Back in November, community organizer D.J. Zackery wanted to act on Bradley's idea of a garden, but had nowhere to put it.

"Other than that, I was going to a stuck point where I was going to find another way to achieve my goal," said Zachery.

That's when Chelsee Dewberry stepped in. She heard about the group's goal to revamp the Ranch Oak neighborhood.

“I still wanted to do my part, but I just didn't know how,” said Dewberry. “Until I had seen her post about the garden, and I was like ‘Ok, well, we have this land, what can we do with it?’”

The land located next to a park in the neighborhood has been in Dewberry's family for 15 years, and her connection with Ranch Oak goes back to her grandfather, who was one of the firsts residents to move there.

Zackery and Bradley took up Dewberry's offer to use the lot, and now are looking forward to seeing this land grow.

"We're all just new at this,” said Zachery. “We're all novices. We are just a bunch of people with a passion, and a will to make it happen.”

The group said the garden will be open for the Ranch Oak community for personal use, but for some of the young entrepreneurs wanting to grow and sell their produce, they will work out a sublease for a section of the lot.

They still need plenty of donations and gardening supplies before the groundbreaking on Saturday. You can bring by the gardening supply donations to the lot on 609 SW Cody Place in Lawton or to Ice Tre's Bardershop on 2104 West Gore Boulevard. You can donate money to the garden here.