Oli Is Gone, But His Loving Kindness Still Thrives In Family Garden
Almost every Saturday, Jenna Fournel pulls a table on her front yard and piles it with about 30 pounds of produce from her garden, free for anyone to take. The farm stand, which started in 2020, grew from a garden that began in 2018 when her youngest son, Oli, wanted to raise money for a nearby animal shelter. But eight-year-old Oli died suddenly in the fall of 2019. "People brought us food for months, people checked in all the time; and I was so struck by the ways in which a community, both people that I knew but also strangers, just lifted us up." In the spirit of Oli's loving kindness, they expanded the garden, and when the pandemic forced the world into lockdown, they put out the old picnic table, painted a sign, and designed stickers. Slowly, people started coming by every Saturday morning and many neighbors met there for the first time. As the family works in the garden, they know Oli's spirit is with them every time they hear a wind chime that was hung in his memory.
