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Los Angeles Times
Los Angeles Times
Lifestyle
Lisa Boone

Once a junkyard, this LA garden is a healing 'altar' for survivors of violent crime

LOS ANGELES -- Walking into the Survivors Healing Garden on 108th Street, just blocks from Watts Towers, Oya Sherrills radiates calm as she stops to pick up trash that has blown in from the Union Pacific railroad tracks nearby.

"This was a junkyard with cars all over the place," she says, surveying the 3,150-square-foot plot of land that surrounds the office of the nonprofit Reverence Project.

Beneath the cleared debris of the former junkyard, a garden is blooming with fragrant culinary herbs, newly planted trees and low-water California native plants.

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