This article is part of a series about food insecurity and possible solutions in Forsyth County, reported, written and photographed by Wake Forest University journalism students. The series was part of a semester-long class taught by Newsline’s environmental investigative reporter and associate editor. Lisa Sorg. The final episode will be published this week.
One spring morning, Lorraine Mortis greets visitors at Simon’s Green Acres Food Garden in Winston-Salem. She tipped her emerald green bucket hat over her, removed her dirt-covered gardening gloves, and shook his hand.
“All the beds you see,” Mortis said, stretching a gloved hand across a dark brown rectangle. “They’re all for the community. We’re here for people who need food, and we’re feeding them. It’s really that simple.”
Twelve miles north, Jackie Fonseca and her teenage son, Bastian Segundo, just moved to Rural Hall, population 3,300, from Tucson, Arizona’s major city. It was here that their family lived for the first time in a house with a garden. They were excited about the prospect of growing their own food, but didn’t know where to start. That was until they rented a bed at a local community garden.
Forsyth County has about 90 community and school gardens, according to the local extension office. Whether in urban or rural settings, community gardens reduce the burden of food insecurity and serve as a “third place.” According to the nonprofit Brookings Institution, it’s not home or work, but “a place to exchange ideas, have fun, and build relationships.”
While many gardens serve as neighborhood hubs for local residents to connect and grow crops, some gardens seek to alleviate urgent and immediate needs of their residents.
Nearly 61,000 local residents experience food insecurity due to lack of access to affordable and nutritious food. The city also has at least 21 food deserts, or areas where more than two-thirds of residents live more than a third of a mile from a grocery store or market.
Because of historically discriminatory redlining by counties and racist lending practices by local banks, most food deserts coincide with areas where the majority of residents are people of color.
In 2011, Winston-Salem State University partnered with the Simon G. Atkins Regional Development Corporation to address the severe food insecurity facing residents of Winston-Salem’s East and Southeast wards.
“We’re in the middle of a food desert. Winston-Salem State University is about a mile from there,” Mortis said, gesturing toward the road that runs parallel to the garden. “And this region, this area of the Southeast, is primarily populated by Spanish-speaking people and African-Americans.”
The garden, which spans the size of roughly two football fields, features approximately 90 raised beds, a shed, a fire pit, a performance stage and a fenced-in orchard. All food grown in the garden is used to provide food for residents in the local and surrounding communities.
Mortis has been volunteering at the nursery school since 2013, two years after its establishment. The Farmers’ Market is held every Saturday morning, as well as a number of community events such as cooking classes and barbecues. Still, Mortis said the biggest challenge in running the garden is convincing people to participate.
Forsyth County Cooperative Extension provides information on starting and maintaining a community garden.
Here are some tips:
1. Organize a meeting of interested people and decide on the type of garden: vegetable, flower, organic, etc.
2. Establish a planning committee.
3. Identify people in your community who have the skills, experience, and resources.
4. Contact sponsors or donors of seeds, tools, and fencing.
5. Choose a location that receives at least 6 hours of sunlight. Make sure water is available and test the soil for contaminants. Find out who owns the land, whether it will be rented, and for how long. Ask if you need insurance.
6. Prepare and develop the site for planting.
7. Organize your garden. How many plots do you need? Make sure you have space to store your tools.Plant flowers and shrubs along the edges of your garden
8. Consider creating a special garden for your child.
9. Decide on rules for allocating plots, sharing tools, and disbursing money. Document your rules.
10. Help members stay in touch, not just electronically. Bulletin boards will also be set up in the park.
“We recently started Zumba classes, and we’re trying to get a salsa teacher to teach those classes,” Mortis said. “There are a lot of Hispanic families living right next door to us, but we don’t usually have much interaction with them. Okay – why would you want to go to a party where you don’t feel invited?”
That’s why Mortis and his volunteers want to grow beyond just delivering food to people. “We want to create this multicultural space. Something that reflects the people who live around it. They should feel represented here because it’s for them.”
The nursery school holds volunteer days on the third Wednesday and second Saturday of every month. On a recent morning in the garden, Mortis joined two other volunteers.
“It’s hard work, especially in the summer when it’s 90 degrees with no shade,” said one volunteer, shaking his head as he wiped sweat from his forehead. “But you come anyway. Because you know the satisfaction you get after hard physical work? And knowing that, this is good work. It makes a positive difference in someone’s life. That’s all. “It’s worth it,” she said.
A few months ago, Bastian was driving home from school with his mother when he noticed two people gardening on the side of a busy road. He asked his mother to stop and then approached Jane Bodenhamer, co-leader of Rural Hall Community Garden.
“How can I learn how to do that?” Bastian asked Bodenhamer.
He now has garden beds filled with plants he has grown himself and has developed strong relationships with Bodenhamer and other garden leaders.
Fifteen years ago, Bodenhamer and Mark Rutledge helped start the Rural Hall Community Garden next door to Antioch United Methodist Church.
Rutledge grew up in Germanton, a city about four miles from Rural Hall, and helped his grandfather grow tobacco, which Rutledge didn’t like.
Although he didn’t suffer from food insecurity himself, he looked back on his childhood and noticed signs he might have missed at school. For example, one of his classmates brought the same cheese sandwich to school for lunch every day, and another classmate came to school. People who never buy ice cream.
Rutledge’s wife, Tracy, initially encouraged him to join the community garden. Rutledge said she attributed the sense of “family” to why he kept coming back.
Each 4-foot by 8-foot raised bed can be rented annually for $10. The co-leaders want to pay, but understand that some people cannot afford to pay the fees. Many community members do not pay for their beds.
Since its establishment, the garden has grown by leaps and bounds. It fostered a community in which everyone shared the harvest, and helped bring together members of a diverse range of cultures and ages, including families from Peru and Hungary, and gardeners ranging from age 6 to his 94 years.
This is Bart, 94 years old. She lives across the street from the church and can always see who is tending the garden.
“Bert is our mascot,” Rutledge said. “She works in the garden. She’s basically our security system.”
“She can see through bricks,” Bodenhamer joked.
Bastien spends most of his free time in his garden, learning new skills and trying out new plants. The most popular plants in the garden are tomatoes and peppers because of their widespread availability, followed by lettuce, sweet potatoes, and onions.
His mother, Fonseca, said she wanted Bastian to get involved in the garden because she had heard about how her grandmother’s family struggled every day to find food. She wants them to not only grow their own vegetables, but also become part of the local community. .
Bastian and Fonseca sometimes visit the garden during the day to relax and unwind.
“There’s a lot of knowledge here,” Fonseca said. “It’s not just the space and the tools, it’s the friendship.”
