On a sweltering Tuesday, Eli MacDonald stripped weeds from the Kwanzaa Community Garden on Midland Avenue. 

MacDonald, the director emeritus of Onondaga Earth Corps, pulled the weeds with a hula hoe and yanked at them with his hands. He was in the garden for an OEC project.

The 74-year-old sported a beige bucket hat, and a long-sleeved yellow shirt imprinted with the OEC logo, and he tucked the shirt into the waist of his cargo jeans. Even on a humid, 83-degree day, this is where MacDonald finds peace.

Few know it, but Onondaga Earth Corps started 20 years ago with MacDonald. Then, it was called “The Eli MacDonald Green Team.” Since then, OEC has hired 500 teenagers and young adults. A conversation with a friend helped MacDonald realize the activities that put him on the right path — working with trees and plants — could give the same peace to others. OEC is now a nonprofit that hopes to empower youth, sometimes at-risk youth, through environmental projects.

Before MacDonald knew the value of planting and pruning, there were run-ins with police, struggles with addiction, and a winding path that led him to Syracuse. 

Now, MacDonald is put together. He keeps a rigorous schedule, even at 74 years old. Twice each week, he goes to OEC to help with their headquarters’ upkeep. MacDonald volunteers at their planting events, still a staple at the organization 20 years after he helped found it. 

“This program has been so blessed to me,” MacDonald said. “I’m trying to give back as much as I can.”

The idea for Eli MacDonald’s Green Team grew from a conversation MacDonald had with a friend that recounted their pasts. 

Growing up in New Jersey, MacDonald often befriended negative influences, he said. He had frequent run-ins with police, including for a robbery and breaking parking meters. MacDonald eventually struggled with addiction, he said. 

Eli MacDonald talks with Tay Stenson, OEC Youth Program Coordinator, at Kwanzaa Garden. Credit: Michelle Gabel | Central Current

Once, he was arrested and ended up in a court hearing. MacDonald remembers a judge telling him You’re not a leader, you’re a follower, MacDonald said. 

The next decade of his life would be a whirlwind. He spent two years in a juvenile detention center and then some time in Vietnam as part of the United States military. While he was in Vietnam, his father was killed. 

Once he came home, MacDonald moved from Kentucky to Pennsylvania to Washington, D.C. He lost touch with one of his older brothers for about three years.

Luck brought them back together. MacDonald reunited with his brother, David MacDonald, who would go on to become a ceramics professor at Syracuse University, while David was visiting Washington, D.C. 

“It was a complete serendipity that we happened to be in the D.C. area at the same time,” David said. 

MacDonald, struggling, asked David if he could move to Syracuse. His brother said yes. 

Coming to Syracuse marked a transformational time for MacDonald. He worked in maintenance jobs that often had him outdoors. He found peace and discipline in the outdoors.  

The conversation with his friend, which happened about 20 years after MacDonald moved to Syracuse, helped him realize he could help others find the same type of calm and prevent youth from straying down a similar path. 

  • Eli MacDonald surveys a garden where Onondaga Earth Corps helped plant flowers.
    Eli MacDonald is the founder of the Onondaga Earth Corps, originally called the Eli MacDonald Green Team. Credit: Michelle Gabel | Central Current
  • Eli MacDonald talks to crew members from Onondaga Earth Corps.
    Eli MacDonald, right, talks with crew members Tuffis Halliburton and Nataisa Bowens, and crew leader Jay Porch, at Kwanzaa Village Community Garden May 14. Credit: Michelle Gabel | Central Current
  • Eli MacDonald talks to a crew member from Onondaga Earth Corps.
    Eli MacDonald talks with Tay Stenson, OEC Youth Program Coordinator, at Kwanzaa Garden. Credit: Michelle Gabel | Central Current
  • Eli MacDonald talks to a crew member from Onondaga Earth Corps.
    Eli MacDonald with Tay Stenson, OEC Youth Program Coordinator, in the office. Credit: Michelle Gabel | Central Current
  • Eli MacDonald, middle left, works with crew members Tuffis Halliburton and Nataisa Bowens, and crew leader Jay Porch, at Kwanzaa Garden. Credit: Michelle Gabel | Central Current
  • Eli MacDonald helps Onondaga Earth Corps at a community planting on the Onondaga Creekwalk.
    EOC founder Eli MacDonald talks with volunteer Paul Sexton in a file photo from a Kirk Park garden planting October 8, 2022. Credit: Michelle Gabel | Central Current
  • Tayvion Stenson sits for a portrait photo.
    Tayvion Stenson, Onondaga Earth Corps Youth Program Coordinator, began with OEC in 2016 as a crew member. Credit: Michelle Gabel | Central Current

“The first thing we were saying was that let’s try to put them to work some kind of way,” MacDonald said. 

The Gifford Foundation eventually funded the Green Team program, helping employ 14 teenagers and young adults. MacDonald initially doubted his ability to be the program director.

But in those moments of doubt, he remembered what it was like growing up with eight siblings. MacDonald used lessons he learned about how to connect with each of his siblings to connect with the teenagers and young adults he supervised. 

Even as he worked with Green Team and OEC from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., MacDonald maintained another job at the Dunbar Center. He would go to the center as early as 4 a.m. to begin his day and then return to Dunbar when his work with the Green Team finished. MacDonald maintained that schedule for three years, he said. 

Even after the Green Team restructured to become OEC, MacDonald stayed on. Over the last two decades, MacDonald has helped OEC grow. He’s mentored crew members as they came to value planting as he did. Many of the OEC staff and crew members respectfully address him as Mr. Eli.

“He’s kind of a steward of both the program and the building,” said Greg Michel, OEC’s executive director. “We both come here a lot and make sure the building is running and operating.” 

Even now, MacDonald helps supervise OEC’s projects. At the Kwanzaa Community Garden, MacDonald turned upward facing shovels downward, and reminded OEC crew members to be mindful of where they placed tools to prevent injuries. 

One of MacDonald’s former OEC youth crew members, Taveon Stenson, who started working with OEC in 2016, has worked his way up in the organization. Stenson said MacDonald’s tutelage was critical to his growth. 

Tayvion Stenson sits for a portrait photo.
Taveon Stenson, Onondaga Earth Corps Youth Program Coordinator, began with OEC in 2016 as a crew member. Credit: Michelle Gabel | Central Current

“I’ve learned a lot from just watching him, he really is a great representation of standing on business,” said Taveon Stenson, OEC’s youth program coordinator. Stenson called MacDonald a man of his word. 

Stenson is now the organization’s personal development coordinator for young adults. 

MacDonald’s emeritus implies he should be retired, but he refuses to. Staying busy helps keep him young, he said. 

“The people are helping me stay afloat,” MacDonald said. “I just feel blessed that I’m still alive and helping everybody else.”

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Yolanda Stewart was raised in the Bronx, New York City. Before choosing a career path in journalism she found a voice in writing plays, short stories, and a myriad of other creative outlets. She is a 2022...