NORTHWEST PRESS Your Community Press newspaper serving Colerain Township, Green Township, Sharonville, Springdale, Wyoming and other Northwest Cincinnati neighborhoods
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 24, 2020 | BECAUSE COMMUNITY MATTERS | PART OF THE USA TODAY NETWORK
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A city farm sows seeds of hope and food to go
Tikkun Farm in Mt. Healthy acts as a unique gathering place for its community. PHOTOS BY GRACE PRITCHETT/ENQUIRER Sarah Haselhorst Cincinnati Enquirer USA TODAY NETWORK
I didn’t stumble on Tikkun Farm by accident. It was February and I was bundled up in my apartment in Columbia, Missouri, where winter breeze blew through cracks of my century-old windows. I was cold, looking for warmth. “Farmhouse retreat – 20 mins from downtown Cincinnati”, the Airbnb listing read. It was the fi rst long-stay off ering I’d seen that promised more than barebones furniture and a gut-punch price tag. Roosters, hens and the promise of a pot-bellied pig convinced me. I needed to stay at the farm over the summer. A week passed and I’d waited too long. Someone had scooped up the storybook listing. And by March, the pandemic decimated my life in Columba. I didn’t think about the farm, instead, I felt immobilized. It wasn’t until late April that my decision to go to Cincinnati to work as an intern, despite the pandemic, was solidi-
fi ed. I began to search again, this time knowing I’d be working remotely. The Tikkun Farm listing reappeared. And there I was, two weeks later, hands glued to the steering wheel as I navigated through sheets of rain and blinding white skies during a fi ve-hour drive from St. Louis to Cincinnati. The rain had quelled by the time I made it into Mt. Healthy, where Tikkun Farm is planted. Distracted, my eyes darted around Hamilton Avenue, off the North College Hill/Mt. Healthy exit. It was more than unusual that a farm would be here, I thought, as Walgreens, an animal hospital, a tire shop and a gas station came into my view all at once. I was skeptical. The last turn was Elizabeth Street. My tires managed to fi nd every rainsoaked pothole that dotted the way to Tikkun Farm. As I parked and then meandered, luggage in tow, into the threestory farmhouse, I was too drained to See TIKKUN, Page 8A
Mt. Healthy resident Tina Ascough feeds the animals on Tikkun Farm on Tuesday, June 9. Ascough began attending Tikkun Farm's classes last fall after her husband passed and now volunteers regularly with her two children. "I am hoping this place will be a good healing place for me and both of my kids" Ascough said.
You can’t keep ’em down at The Farm West side institution is back from tax trouble, pandemic shutdown Randy Tucker Cincinnati Enquirer USA TODAY NETWORK
Patrons dine at The Farm restaurant in Delhi Township on June 9. After being dealt a double blow from tax troubles and the coronavirus shut down, The Farm is making its comeback and adjusting to new health regulations. SAM GREENE/THE ENQUIRER
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DELHI TWP. – “We’re still standing,” owner Daniel Elsaesser proudly proclaimed as he recently welcomed customers back to The Farm after a months-long shutdown in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic. If Elsaesser’s comments were the title of a book, it would be an epic saga of despair, salvation and recovery for the banquet and event center here in suburban Cincinnati, which has been a West Side institution for more than 80 years. Just six months ago, The Farm at 239
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Anderson Ferry Road was scheduled to be sold at an Internal Revenue Service auction to satisfy more than $126,000 in unpaid payroll taxes. The IRS, which seized the property, even sent an auctioneer to the site to conduct the scheduled sale on Jan. 22 before an unnamed benefactor stepped in at the eleventh hour. The man, whom Elsaesser would identify only as a well-known West Side businessman, loaned the owner enough money to pay off his IRS debt. But before Elsaesser could breathe a sigh of relief from months of negotiatSee THE FARM, Page 2A
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