A house on Route 46 in Canfield is up for sale for $2 million. That money is more than just the price of the home. It amounts to a major donation towards a Children's Garden inside Mill Creek Park. 

The garden is located at Fellows Riverside Garden. It was originally built in the 1980’s. Now, the Mill Creek Metroparks Foundation is working on redeveloping it. 

The hope is to make the children’s garden a more interactive experience.

“The design encompasses several different garden areas. With a really heavy focus on vegetation, getting kids out there to use their senses to touch, smell, feel, learn about vegetation,” said Justin Rogers, Planning and Operations Director for Mill Creek Metroparks.

The children’s garden will be made up of 5 smaller gardens: a stream garden, a forest garden, a wonder rooms garden, a sensory garden and a harvest garden.

The Fox family donated the $2 million dollar home to the Mill Creek Park Foundation. Rogers said the donation is helping the park move forward with the project.

“The timeline would certainly be extended longer than it is now. So that's $2 million. We're up to about $2.5 million for this $3 million project. So it really gets the green light going,” said Rogers.

The Fox family donated the home in memory of a family member, AJ Fox, who died in 2016. 

Because of the family’s donation, the Board of Mill Creek MetroParks Commissioners approved an agreement that allowed the garden to be renamed to Anthony J. Fox Family Foundation Children's Garden.

The family shared the following statement:

“AJ Fox was a father, son, brother, and husband. To those of us who knew him, he was more than that. He was a giver and an optimist. It has been said that people die twice. Once when you take your last breath, and the second when someone says your name for the last time. In the spirit of who AJ was, we wish to make this donation to the Mill Creek MetroParks Children’s Garden. Our hope is that while its beauty spreads joy to the families of our community, they will forever think of AJ.”  

“They wanted to have something that remembered AJ Fox, his family and his contributions to the community,” said Rogers.

Other donations were given towards the project, but the names of the donors have not been announced yet.

The redevelopment project has been in the works for years.

Construction for the children’s garden is already underway. It’s expected to be completed by the end of 2025.

You can donate here.