Our History

A committee was formed in January 2009 to establish the Croatian Cultural Garden. Throughout the year we have worked on design, fundraising and coordinating the site selection with the Cleveland Cultural Garden Federation and the City of Cleveland. The design committee has been working with landscape architect Jim McKnight to create a garden which reflects the Croatian culture.    The fundraising efforts have begun with a large concert of various Croatian cultural groups participating in November. It was our first opportunity to explain our designs to the community, which were well received. It was a successful event, raising approximately $20,000. Since then we have received additional donations from individuals and organizations. Thanks to a generous matching donation from a Croatian businessman our total is $90,000 at the end of 2010.    Our total estimated cost for the entire project is $500,000. We are planning to complete the garden in several phases with initial groundbreaking in the spring of 2011. It is our goal to raise the first $125,000 for phase I so that construction can begin. In order to do so, we are reaching out to other sources of funding as well as to Croatians across the United States.    The dedication of Phase 1 of the Croatian Cultural Garden was held on June 3, 2012, with hundreds in the Croatian community in attendance. We are currently working on Phase 2, and the plans for this phase have already been approved. We are currently actively seeking additional donations to help complete Phase 2; this includes the developement of the hillside with steps, the expansion of the waterfall and the installation of the Prince Viselav Krstionica baptismal font.