The vacant lot at the corner of Willow and Light streets in New Richmond is slowly being transformed. A stone maze winds its way across the once trash-strewn earth. Smogs of small green native plants designed to attract butterflies dot the perimeter, with room for more later.

It’s home to a new butterfly garden that will be maintained by the staff and residents of two local addiction recovery homes—a way for them to find peace and strengthen community ties during their recovery journey.

Rebirth means several things at this intersection. Nestled along the raging Ohio River, New Richmond has always struggled with an ancient cycle: flooding. Recovery. Flood. Recovery. There was a huge one in 1937. Another in 1996. And another one a year later in 1997.

As people gather to dedicate the garden on a recent drizzly Sunday, Anita Lenhardt remembers that flood. She looks across the street.

“I actually grew up down there on that corner,” she says. “There’s nothing there now. The 1997 flood just ruined all my family’s property.”

The 1997 flood destroyed 40 houses and damaged another 395. The new garden once held one of them. The June 10, 1997 edition of the Cincinnati Enquirer says water from the March flood filled the first floor of the open blue house owned by 70-year-old Edna Hadley and built by her late husband 46 years ago. The city later purchased the property and dozens of others with FEMA funds for green space conversion.

“We’ve cleaned up after floods before,” local business owner Lee Ann Hodges told the paper at the time. “If it happens again, we’ll clean it up again.”

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Gardening as an act of recovery

The flood is not Lenhardt’s only connection to this place. He works for On Our Way Home, the nonprofit that partners with the Garden Village. He runs a men’s recovery house just down the street from where Lenhardt works. She lives in the organization’s women’s recovery home in Bethel. Like other residents, she volunteered to help tend the garden.

Her own journey through addiction began 15 years ago with a back injury and a prescription for pain medication.

“I had everything a person could want,” she says. “And then the first pill I took, that was my whole life after that.”

Lenhardt is currently going to school to counsel others overcoming addiction. The symbolism of butterflies—their beginning as caterpillars, their retreat into a cocoon, their reappearance—resonates with her.

“I think about it, how you transform into something beautiful, something you were always meant to be,” she says.

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New Richmond Village Administrator Kathryn Bailey says the land underwent the transformation thanks to a grant the village and Clermont County worked on together.

“This was just a junkyard,” she says. “Literal. We had to take out the trash. We took out old cars”.

The village wants to connect the land with other lots converted into green space. Next objective: a nearby bird sanctuary.

“I think what it stands for is a beautiful thing,” says Bailey. “Rebirth.”

Beauty after hardships

As Bailey explains the cleanup efforts, people show up for a garden unveiling ceremony.

Gary Cunningham was an enthusiastic guide all morning for anyone interested in space.

“Hey guys, wanna come? Come in, we’ll check it out,” he says to people on the edges of the park as the ceremony begins.

Cunningham lives just down the street at On Our Way Home Men’s Recovery Center and works at a nearby restaurant. Like Lenhardt, he is one of the residents who will help maintain the garden.

Cunningham says the recovery house is essential for him. He struggles with substance abuse, which started with alcohol and then grew to include hard drugs. He was facing homelessness when his former counselor, Emily Stoll, helped him into the New Richmond home.

Stoll, who has battled addiction herself, is now On Our Way Home’s director of outreach. She presides over the opening ceremony of the garden. First, there’s a meditative walk around the maze and photos to be taken in the new park.

The steady morning drizzle clears just as Stoll gives a short speech about hardship and struggle, resilience and growth. It’s meant to reflect on the individual journeys people in recovery must take, but its watery theme also resonates with the village’s periodic rebirth after floods.

“Rain, while sometimes seen as an inconvenience, is really a gift,” she says. “Like the challenges we face in life, it can bring growth and renewal. The rain that fell today will help this garden blossom and bloom. It’s a reminder that beauty often comes out of difficult times.”

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To top it all off, Stoll, Cunningham and others hand out small envelopes to attendees. Contains live monarch butterflies. The crowd of several dozen releases them all at once. There are gasps and cheers as the butterflies emerge, filling the air with orange sparkles.

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Reconnecting to the community

Stoll says he hopes turning this lot into a garden and maintaining it will help residents in addiction recovery feel like they’re a bigger part of the village.

“There’s a lot of isolation in recovery because of guilt and shame and embarrassment and the righteous barriers our society has put in place,” she says. “But people can heal through community and relationship with others. This butterfly garden will give our residents this chance to be more involved in the community.”

That’s something Cunningham is excited about.

“How can I say this? Having a purpose, being able to go out there and take care of it knowing it’s ours,” he says.