"On a short, dead-end street lined with low-income apartment complexes, a garden grows. Almost-ripe zucchini and tomatoes hang from tall plants. The compost heap looks tidy and fertile. Weeds are nowhere to be found, thanks to upkeep by a few dedicated gardeners who can finally breathe a sigh of relief. They get to continue sowing the soil for many more years."
I wrote those words more than 8 years ago for an article in the Columbia Missourian about the Community Garden Coalition. (It was so long ago that the article isn't in the online archives anymore.) I got kudos in the daily staff email from the Editor-in-Chief, who said that I had managed to made even a garden sound interesting. (Maybe because gardens are interesting!) I was so proud - little old me, getting a shout-out from the chief.
Well, it has happened again. I scrolled down Grist's front page to find this posting: Food and the Beloved Community by Grist's ag guru Tom Philpott. It's about community gardens and the legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr., a speech given at the Duke Gardens during an MLK Day of Service event. It caught my eye because I read Philpott's column very often, but also because I had just signed up for the Rooting DC 2009 conference about community gardening, and had also talked with someone today about the civil rights and discrimination issues that the USDA is dealing with. So imagine my surprise when the very first line of the Grist piece, the note before the text, references the organization I helped start! Back in the day, Farmhand was just a bunch of stressed out students shoveling cow poop and cutting brush. The students who took over as Farmhand leaders have done some fantastic work this year, far better than I could ever hope to have done. I'm so proud that this little group has made such an impact that a Grist guru would participate in such an event and write about it in an internationally read and respected forum, no less! Another shout-out from the chief, free publicity for a deserving and accomplished group of students, and inspiration to keep working for change.
