Some days, nothing seems better than digging in the dirt, removing weeds and doing all that you can to help something grow from a twiggy plant into a bountiful harvest.
For two Paducah nonprofit organizations, planting a garden this summer has given their clients and their agencies a chance to grow vegetables while nurturing relationships and cultivating community.
Centerpoint Recovery Center for men, a subsidiary of Four Rivers Behavioral Health, and the Merryman House, a domestic violence shelter, both have found success with their gardens, not just with the amount of vegetables produced so far but with the relationships they’ve built.
Centerpoint’s garden encompasses about an acre and a half and has tomatoes, green peppers, banana peppers, corn, pole beans, pumpkins, watermelons and cantaloupes. The Merryman House garden contains zucchini, cucumbers, tomatoes, peppers and flowers. Both programs have had gardens for the past few years, but this year their gardens have produced more than just produce.
Centerpoint nurse Shan Gordon said their garden helps their clients to learn a skill that they can take with them after they graduate from the recovery program. Centerpoint offers a men’s substance abuse treatment program in a peer-driven community. The clients complete programming that helps them to transition back into society, and some clients return as peer mentors to help guide other men through recovery.
“It helps them grow and grow in their recovery,” Gordon said. “They can see the fruits of their labor, as they work the program here, they see themselves grow. It’s a mirrored relationship here.”
Jacob Walker, a Centerpoint client who also serves as the farm manager, said he and his crew tend to the garden about three hours a day – weeding, hoeing, fertilizing, watering, harvesting. Those hours help them do more than simply tend to a garden.
“It keeps you out of your head,” Walker said. “A lot of times in the program, you get into your head about some things and working through some steps. It gives you a chance to go out and reflect. You work at your own pace and think about things.”
Centerpoint has used the harvest to feed the men. Walker laughed and said they have eaten corn on the cob every way possible, including deep fried. With the tomato plants producing 30-40 fruit a day, the men planned to make salsa. And they’ve pickled cucumbers.
Walker, who grew up in the mountains near Gatlinburg, Tennessee, said he has enjoyed teaching other men how to garden and how to preserve the harvest through canning. He has relied on his upbringing “off the grid” in the mountains since many of the men at the center have not gardened or canned and they grew up in places where they couldn’t garden.
Even for the men who don’t garden, Walker said the garden gives them a place to think. “They know that they can come up and talk to me in the garden,” he said.
At the Merryman House, the garden has allowed clients to learn new skills and work through their issues. Merryman House, which helps about 1,000 domestic violence victims a year with shelter and outreach programming, received a grant from Kentucky State University’s Farming for Cash program about three years ago. Volunteers from El Arbol, the Master Gardeners and the Boy Scouts have helped launch the project, said Amy Abernathy, director of operations.
This year, Merryman House hired retired physician Jim Gould as the farm manager. Gould has helped clients learn how to tend to the garden, and he has started a small Cooperative Share Agreement program in which Merryman House sells a vegetable bundle to staff and board members. Volunteer Joyce Casper also has started picking and arranging flowers for $5.
Abernathy said the program has helped their clients to find their way. “It makes them feel like they are a part of something,” she said. “They might be in a situation, and it helps them to integrate back into trusting others. They know that in life, there’s always something that you have to get past to see the product on the other side.”
For gardeners, issues arise with bugs, weeds and unpredictable weather conditions. “It can be metaphorical,” Abernathy said. “The planting, the weeding, the cultivating. It can be the same with our domestic violence victims. They have to learn how to get their soil right, get their weeds out and give themselves what they need to grow.”
Both organizations hope their gardening programs will open opportunities for community engagement.
At Centerpoint, Gordon said they hope they might be able to open a vegetable stand after the pandemic ends.
Abernathy has ideas for the Merryman House such as supplying local restaurants or setting up a market. “We want to become a resource for the community,” she said.
With how their gardens are growing as they change lives, both agencies should be able to reap a bountiful harvest.
