Doris Theon Hardy Resilience Garden
Through the Doris Theon Hardy Resilience Garden, we are transforming shared space into a place for fresh food, hands-on learning, and community connection.
East Kinston is recognized as a food desert, meaning that residents have limited access to affordable and nutritious food. Our garden helps address those barriers by bringing food production directly into the neighborhood and giving residents opportunities to participate in growing the food that nourishes our community.
The Doris Theon Hardy Resilience Garden is a community growing and gathering space at the East Kinston Neighborhood Hub. Built on land once surrounded by vacancy and disinvestment, the garden is helping transform underutilized property into a place where neighbors can grow food, young people can learn, and our community can build a healthier and more resilient future.
The garden includes raised growing beds, composting, gathering areas, and space for hands-on learning, with continued improvements planned as it grows. Through seasonal planting and harvesting, community workdays, youth programming, and volunteer opportunities, residents of all ages can play a role in caring for the land.
Our vision extends beyond growing vegetables. We see the garden as an outdoor classroom, a community resource, and a place for food access, environmental education, intergenerational learning, and shared stewardship. Young people have opportunities to put their hands in the soil, understand where food comes from, learn practical growing skills, and see themselves as caretakers of their community.
The garden is named in honor of Doris Theon Hardy, a lifelong East Kinston resident whose life reflected generations of service to this community.
Ms. Theon, as she was affectionately called by the youth of Kinston Teens, spent more than 60 years as an educator and counselor in local public schools, including schools serving East Kinston. Her family's legacy of service stretched even further: her mother, Mrs. Laura Hardy, was Kinston's first Black public librarian and helped establish East Kinston's first Black library.
Ms. Theon knew East Kinston across generations. She remembered a neighborhood filled with families, businesses, and neighbors, and she also lived through the flooding, population loss, vacant homes, and disinvestment that changed the community around her. When Kinston Teens established the East Kinston Neighborhood Hub just a block from her home, she saw something different beginning to take root: young people gathering, learning, and working to make their neighborhood better.
Before her passing, Ms. Theon expressed her support for the vision of the East Kinston Neighborhood Hub, including the garden and other spaces where residents could gather, access resources, prepare for environmental challenges, and create new opportunities for future generations. She believed these investments could help rebuild and restore the neighborhood she had called home throughout her life.
“When Kinston Teens first opened its Neighborhood Hub one block over from me in 2018, it brought life back to a mostly deserted corner of East Kinston. I was thrilled to see young people gathering, learning, and working to make our neighborhood better. It was a reminder of the spirit that has always lived here, a spirit that I know can flourish once again with the right support and investment.”
— Theon Hardy, September 18, 2024
The sign naming the Doris Theon Hardy Resilience Garden was presented by Kinston Teens to Ms. Theon on her 90th birthday, May 24, 2026. Ms. Theon enjoyed watching the fruits of her compassion grow at the garden until her passing on August 24, 2026.
Garden Partners & Sponsors
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Youth Service America
Funding Partner
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Hands for Humanity Food Pantry
Resource Provider
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Kate B. Reynolds Charitable Trust
Funding Partner
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Brown's Plants & Seeds
Plant & Seed Provider
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NC Black Alliance
Funding Partner
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Blue Cross Blue Shield of NC Foundation
Funding Partner
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Act Now Community Development
Training Partner
