A family's desire to honor a one year old child named Lucy who died suddenly is a perfect match for a project that's been waiting to happen.
Thirteen year old Sasha Hausman of Golden Valley decided to step in to help build a place for children to play when they come to the Minneapolis Crisis Nursery for help.
"My cousin passed away," Sasha explained, "And I wanted to honor her and I wanted to help kids, young kids."
Lucy's Garden is a project that grew out of that family tragedy and a need to do something. The Greater Minneapolis Crisis Nursery works to end child abuse and neglect. More than 2,000 children come here every year when there's a crisis at home.
For the Hausman family, doing something special for those kids was a good fit.
Sasha's mother, Christine Hausman says, "It made perfect sense for us to look for a children's charity because we were all devastated by my niece's death and we needed some way to give back to heal and try to put a silver lining on something that's a very very dark cloud."
Sasha raised the money and the provided a lot of the manpower to plant trees and shrubs that will grow tall enough to separate a busy street from a new play area. The family hopes this will become an oasis for children who have seen trouble.
Christine says hope kids see it this way: "All of my problems and all of my issues on the other side of the fence, but while I'm here, I'm loved, I'm cared for and I'm protected, and I'm a child."
Plans for this garden and landscaping project had been stuck in a drawer for years because the crisis nursery lacked the money to do it until Sasha's family came along and donated nearly half the money and a lot of the labor to make it work.
At a dedication on Friday, Executive Director Mary Pat Lee says it should help ease stress. "That's one of the things we've been trying to do for the last few years at the nursery, create a safe fun place for children who have been dealing with a lot of stress. to come and just get to be kids."
Finally Sasha cut the ribbon on Lucy's garden. "I'm really proud that this actually happened. I didn't think we'd get this far."
The garden's not done yet. There's room set aside to grow and harvest vegetables. It'll be an ongoing project.
Mike Johnson, reporting
news_mjohnson@twelve.tv
August 10, 2012