Caatfish,Veggies, and Inner Peace by Shannon Brennan photos by John McCormick


Catfish swim in dark water under pale green beds of lettuce, radishes, and basil. The scent from


thirty-year-old rose bushes wafts through the air. Goats bleat, chickens squawk. Welcome to Lynch- burg Grows, an urban farm in the heart of the city, a five-minute drive from Lynchburg College.


Since this nonprofit farm started in 2003, Lynchburg College has arguably provided more volunteer muscle than any other or- ganization. From Bonner Leaders to students working off disciplinary hours, lc students have helped shape the farm, whose mission is “centered on giving people with special needs a space to share their talents and skills while acquiring new ones.” “Almost every day we have volunteers from


Lynchburg College,” said Scott Lowman, a founder, board member, and the volunteer director of stewardship for Lynchburg Grows.


“I would estimate that 30 percent of the vol- unteer work done here has been done by lc.” Lynchburg Grows takes a hands-in-the-dirt


approach to teaching others how sustainable food production promotes a healthy planet. The farm is situated on approximately seven acres with two of those acres encompassing nine greenhouses that once produced most of Virginia’s cut roses. When competition from South America edged out the domestic rose


business, the Schenkel family greenhouses fell into disarray. The misfortunes of the flower industry


provided Lynchburg Grows a place to start work, but by August of 2005, the fledgling organization hadn’t made much headway. With only half a year left on its option to buy the property, the group got a much- needed boost when lc associate chaplain Anne Gibbons showed up with 220 freshmen one Sunday, said Michael Van Ness, a founder and executive director of Lynchburg Grows.


“Those kids cleaned out an entire greenhouse in four hours,” he recalled. LC freshmen have been back en masse at least once since then. Of the 4,000 people who have volunteered


at Lynchburg Grows, 1,700 have been from lc, Van Ness said. He noted that several stu- dents originally working off disciplinary hours voluntarily come back. “Our partnership with lc has also allowed


us to give three Schenkel family scholarships to students there, and we have also had two


students serve on our board of directors be- fore they graduated,” Van Ness said. “I see this as a big laboratory for Lynchburg Col- lege students.” As a result of all that hard work, the farm


now provides greens to public school systems throughout Central Virginia, as well as veg- etables for a handful of restaurants. A com- munity supported agriculture (CSA) project allows local residents to get weekly boxes of fresh produce, and many subscribers are lc faculty and staff. Lynchburg Grows has provided lc students


with a chance to do research, become self- sufficient, and find inner peace.


Channel catfish


During his senior year, Bonner Leader Wes Schmidt ’08 started an aquaponics project in one of the greenhouses that used fish ex- crement to fertilize plants. (Bonner Leaders programs are supported in about fifty U.S. colleges and universities by the Corella and Bertram F. Bonner Foundation to engage students in meaningful service work in non- profit settings.) Everything was going swim- mingly until an air hose popped out while Wes was gone for a few days and most of the thirty sunfish and blue gills died from lack of aeration. Undeterred, Wes returned to Lynchburg Grows after graduation and worked twenty hours a week for a year as a volunteer. Wes’ early efforts provided the groundwork to convert another greenhouse to aquaponics,


Spring 2012 LC MAGAZINE 27


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