Lular Bestherring tells Brianna Carolina what dishes she can create with some of the vegetables available at The Lord's Church at the Corner of 5th Avenue and Greenfield Street on July 11, 2013 in Wilmington, N.C. The Lord's Church started the garden called Operation Legacy Farms last year as part of its food pantry, Open Hands Food Bank. Since it began three years ago, the church food bank has distributed more than 115,000 pounds of food.
Buy Photo Staff Photo by Ken Blevins
Published: Sunday, July 14, 2013 at 6:10 p.m.
Last Modified: Sunday, July 14, 2013 at 6:10 p.m.
It's a hidden, leafy gem smack in the middle of the city, a large garden that stretches across three backyards off Kerr Avenue in Wilmington.
Community and church groups from across the state and the East Coast are visiting this secret garden, willing to invest their sweat to harvest fresh produce that helps to feed people living in downtown Wilmington.
The Lord's Church started the garden, called Operation Legacy Farms, last year as part of its food pantry, Open Hands Food Bank. The food program at Lord's Church on the corner of Fifth Avenue and Greenfield Street is a partner with the Food Bank of Central and Eastern North Carolina and hosts food distribution days on Wednesday and Fridays. Since it began three years ago, the church food bank has distributed more than 115,000 pounds of food, according to the church.
Pastor Bruce Miller said The Lord's Church began Open Hands after he learned that North Carolina ranks among the top five states in terms of food insecurity, especially in homes with young children. According to Feeding America statistics, 16 percent of people in Brunswick County and 17 percent of people living in Pender and New Hanover counties live in food-insecure households, where not enough food exists to sustain a healthy lifestyle.
Common cause
During the recent recession, Miller said the church noticed the donations it was receiving from area grocery stores and the regional food bank were lessening in "quantity and quality, so we felt the best way to do it was to grow our own food."
Miller grew up in the small town of LaGrange, "where the tagline was ?The Garden Spot,' so I know a little about hard work in the dirt," he said.
Where to find the land for such a farm was a challenge, but Miller's friend, Roy Swepson, loved the idea of feeding the poor with fresh, local produce, so he offered up his backyard. He then talked to two of his neighbors, and they donated the back halves of their backyards to the project as well.
"So we have an African-American, Caucasian and Hispanic neighbors all part of this project," Miller said, wearing a straw hat and mopping sweat from his forehead during a recent mid-morning when the humidity was already blanket-heavy. "It's bringing the body of Christ together in a way working together for a common cause."
Wilmington urban ministry Vigilant Hope got involved with Open Hands while helping with weekly food distributions at The Lord's Church. Now, Vigilant Hope's Jeremy Hardy is organizing summer trips with church groups from West Virginia and Charlotte to help harvest the crops.
The extra hands are needed. The garden has been more successful than they imagined, with fields full of tomatoes, cucumbers, okra, squash, onions, mustard greens, cabbage and green beans. It even produced a five-pound sweet potato last fall.
This year, Miller plans to sell the excess produce to create a financial base for the program to continue.
Filling the food gaps
Nationwide, churches are getting involved in community gardening to help fill the gap for unemployed families. In Wilmington, another group called Urban Grown is also working to plant gardens on church and synagogue properties in order to give away food to the homeless.
What started as a bat mitzvah project at B'nai Israel has become the beginnings of the congregation's first urban community garden project.
"Last year, one of our bat mitzvah students, Mary Andrews, and her father built an irrigation system for a garden behind the synagogue, and we thought we'd like to plant a garden," said Rabbi Bob Waxman at B'nai Israel.
One of his members, Eric Goldman, was browsing on Wilmington's Craigslist and found local gardener Shane Sharpe, who was looking for land to begin community gardens around Wilmington for his nonprofit group Urban Grown.
"I'm kind of in the mindset that, I don't care who you are, you need to eat," Sharpe said, sitting under the arbor at B'nai Israel. He was there planning where to plant fresh blueberry bushes transplanted from the rabbi's home garden.
"I think it's just crazy that we have homeless people and hungry people when we live in an area where we can grow late into the season," Sharpe added.
The synagogue hopes to give much of its leftover food to the growing food pantry just up the street at St. Jude Metropolitan Community Church. Demand at that church's food pantry has grown 150 percent in the last year.
"We'd love to help harvest the food," said St. Jude's pastor the Rev. John McLaughlin.
A community service
Beyond providing food for the needy, Operation Legacy Farms is giving troubled teens a way to serve. Teens completing their community service requirements through New Hanover County's Youth Empowerment Service work in the garden each week, Miller said.
"It's an opportunity for them to really see where their food comes from, and we get a chance to mentor them," the pastor added.
In the fall, the group plans to plant sweet potatoes and collard greens.
"You can get a whole lot of faith lessons when you work out here," Swepson said. "People get blessed. It's kind of therapeutic for them."
Contact Amanda Greene, community manger for Wilmington Faith & Values (WilmingtonFAVS.com) at Amanda.Greene@ReligionNews.com.
Source: http://www.starnewsonline.com/article/20130714/articles/130719808
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