On Monday it was announced that Paradise Garden is the recipient of an almost half million dollar private grant  from Art Place America.

The $445,000 grant will be used for restoration and programatic  needs for the site and is greared toward helping Paradise Garden and Chattooga County  perform creative place making, according to Jordon Poole, director of the Paradise Garden Foundation.

Creative place making is  an initiative that can be embraced and utilized for cultural heritage tourism as well as for arts initiatives such as a vision gallery, the new Folk Art america gallery that recently opened and having people come to Chattooga County and see that it is an artistic place up in the North Georgia Mountains.

Poole said when the grant was initially applied for the need for restoration was great. He said some of that has been done. However he said the garden is still without electricity and running water. Paradise Garden is open on Saturday and Sunday and there are plans to open the garden during the week in the future.