CINCINNATI — In the garden, she's known simply as the basil queen. That’s Sunny Gomez’s unofficial title at Brick Gardens in Madisonville.

"I just have magic hands," Sunny said with a smile.

She’s 15. And right now, she’s trying to pull something else out of the ground. Her boss is shouting.

“Pull!”

Gomez almost falls down. And after yanking off the leaves, she shows me a head of purple broccoli.

“Isn’t that beautiful?” said Marco Powell, the garden's manager.

Gomez used to be shy. But her job here has helped her break out of that. Now, she’s the basil queen — helping provide locally-grown food to her community. Much of it for free.

This Cincinnati environmental group is losing $1 million in federal grants. What's next?

“It’s something that we need,” Powell said. “It’s something th

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