Church Garden


little big


‘Our Saviour’ finds purpose, survival in growing food for others


Becky Smith is a longtime member of the Episcopal Church of Our Saviour in Dallas, Texas, and the coordinator of its community garden. Each Tuesday, she prepares breakfast for volunteers.


BY LORI STAHL Faith & Leadership


DALLAS—Members of the tiny


Episcopal Church of Our Saviour asked themselves this question eight years ago: If the church closed, would it be missed? The answer, congregants sadly


agreed, was no. They cast about for ideas to help the church connect with the surrounding neighborhood, even- tually deciding to start a community garden as an outreach ministry. It was truly a leap of faith in 2003, well be- fore the “eat local” craze and before Michelle Obama planted an organic garden on the White House lawn. Church members chose the project


for one simple reason: “We had no money,” said garden coordinator Becky Smith. The only thing they had was land;


the one-story brick church sits on four acres in Pleasant Grove, an older, lower-income neighborhood eight miles from the glittering skyline of


downtown Dallas. And they had Ms. Smith, a lifelong gardener whose mother descended from sharecrop- pers in rural Arkansas. Our Saviour members recall how


amazed they were when crops from six 10-by-24-foot plots yielded more than 1,000 pounds of vegetables the first year. They donated the crops to a nearby food pantry, reversing the sense of irrelevance they’d had just a year earlier. “They were just very down in the


dumps,” said Suffragan Bishop Paul E. Lambert of the Episcopal Diocese of Dallas. “The next thing I know, they’ve got this garden out here.” By the time Our Saviour’s garden


reached the five-year mark, it had pro- duced 11 tons for charity alone. With a partner agency, church gardeners quickly leveraged grant funding that helped them get tools, seeds, trees and other key equipment for expanding and sustaining the project. Donations snowballed. They got a rainwater cistern and a roofed pavil-


4 B | JANUARY 6, 2012 | UNITED MET HODI S T REPORTER


ion. Area Wal-Marts awarded a match- ing grant for a plant sale. JPMorgan Chase Bank donated picnic tables and money for fencing. Starbucks spon- sored a plot. Church members say that, as of


late 2011, the total yield since the gar- den started is approaching 20 tons. Regardless of the precise number, the members say they’re amazed they have been able to grow so much just outside the church doors. Sophia Brown, a longtime church


member, said, “It’s awesome to see what God can do with a little bit of something.”


Pre-harvest breakfast On a cool autumn day, gardeners


were eager to see what had survived the summer’s triple-digit heat and scorching drought. Mustard greens, peppers, long beans, okra and egg- plant proved among the hardiest. Pinkie White, a retiree, has a small


plot that she has been tending for about three years. That makes her


something of a veteran gardener. “A lot of the people that were here


at first, they got jobs and went on,” said Ms. White, who visits the garden about three times a week to water her greens, beets and Swiss chard. It’s a fact of life—particularly in


the current economy—that gardening takes a back seat to working, or look- ing for work. But new people continue to arrive to replace those who’ve left. The garden has a Facebook Fan


Page, but most people seem to find their way to Our Saviour’s garden by word-of-mouth. On a recent morning, one new volunteer said his mother suggested he visit after she read about it.


Another first-timer, Charles Shipp,


said a friend referred him to Our Sav- iour because he knew Mr. Shipp had previously worked at a community garden in California. On Tuesdays, the newcomers are


invited to join regulars at a breakfast prepared by church members. The fel- lowship typically continues as they


head out to the field to harvest. Susan Balsam, who has been vol-


unteering for about six months, read about Our Saviour’s garden in a super- market flier and now drives across town from North Dallas to pull weeds, plant seeds and dig in the dirt. “At first, I was kind of scared to


drive out there,” she said. “I wasn’t aware of that part of town.” Even some longtime Pleasant


Grove residents say they were sur- prised to see a garden spring up in their neighborhood. “I was just like, ‘What is this out


here in the Grove?’” said Patricia Guynn, who lives about a mile away. The first time she noticed the garden while driving by, she pulled over to check it out. She now comes back to visit. Recently, she brought her son Ben-


jamin, who said the garden is a visible sign that Pleasant Grove is home to many good families. “We have a bad rap,” he said. “A lot of people are afraid to come out in


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