When I saw the job posting for Catholic Charities’ Common Earth Gardens, I knew it was for me. Working with refugees and gardening? A low-stress dream job!
Common Earth Gardens isn’t as much about low-stress gardening as it sounds. The program is about urban agriculture — the system of growing food on small plots in an urban setting. It’s good for people like refugees, who live in a city but are farmers by trade and heritage.
I am not a farmer. I have a master’s degree in social work with a focus on refugee mental health, so I know the mental, emotional, social and physical value of gardening and being outdoors. I also spent my early years in the woods and did a little homesteading.
I was drawn to this work by a passion for working with refugees, my love of fresh local food and my desire to increase food security and advocate for environmental justice issues. Common Earth Gardens promotes access to land and markets in order to increase fresh, culturally important foods in neighborhoods that lack access to both.
Catholic Charities’ mission is guided by the seven themes of Catholic social teaching. Three of these inform the work of the Common Earth Gardens program: solidarity (with refugees), care for God’s creation (sustainable farming), and dignity of work (farming and the opportunity to sell surplus harvest at farmers’ markets).
Funding for Common Earth Gardens was always limited, but it is deeply uncertain right now. We find ourselves in competition with our partners for the same funds, just to have enough staff to keep the gardens and farms going. We are relying on donations and patrons of our farmers’ markets now more than ever. (The Gray Street Farmers Market opens June 5.)
Urban agriculture is not low stress, it isn’t easy and it isn’t cheap. Access to land within the city is highly competitive with developers and neighbors. Water lines break. Theft is rampant. Groundhogs are insatiable. (Coming from a rural area, I had no idea just how high the groundhog population is in the city!)
It is amazing and heart-wrenching to see just how important these small plots of land are to our farmers. They take care of their soil. This land provides them with a connection to Kentucky to help them feel at home. It’s also a way for them to continue their farming legacy and to grow culturally important crops to share with the next generation.
To see a Nepali farmer share the medicinal importance of bitter melon, a Burmese farmer telling you their favorite roselle and spinach recipes, or the Somali farmers showing off their 15-foot-tall corn reminds me of why we are doing what we do.
Food is medicine. Food is community. And everyone deserves to grow and eat what they choose.
Jane Evans is the program director of Common Earth Gardens, a program of Catholic Charities of Louisville. To learn more, visit cclou.org
Share the Journey — At Common Earth Gardens, you can find fresh food and the dignity of work
When I saw the job posting for Catholic Charities’ Common Earth Gardens, I knew it was for me. Working with refugees and gardening? A low-stress dream job!
Common Earth Gardens isn’t as much about low-stress gardening as it sounds. The program is about urban agriculture — the system of growing food on small plots in an urban setting. It’s good for people like refugees, who live in a city but are farmers by trade and heritage.
I am not a farmer. I have a master’s degree in social work with a focus on refugee mental health, so I know the mental, emotional, social and physical value of gardening and being outdoors. I also spent my early years in the woods and did a little homesteading.
I was drawn to this work by a passion for working with refugees, my love of fresh local food and my desire to increase food security and advocate for environmental justice issues. Common Earth Gardens promotes access to land and markets in order to increase fresh, culturally important foods in neighborhoods that lack access to both.
Catholic Charities’ mission is guided by the seven themes of Catholic social teaching. Three of these inform the work of the Common Earth Gardens program: solidarity (with refugees), care for God’s creation (sustainable farming), and dignity of work (farming and the opportunity to sell surplus harvest at farmers’ markets).
Funding for Common Earth Gardens was always limited, but it is deeply uncertain right now. We find ourselves in competition with our partners for the same funds, just to have enough staff to keep the gardens and farms going. We are relying on donations and patrons of our farmers’ markets now more than ever. (The Gray Street Farmers Market opens June 5.)
Urban agriculture is not low stress, it isn’t easy and it isn’t cheap. Access to land within the city is highly competitive with developers and neighbors. Water lines break. Theft is rampant. Groundhogs are insatiable. (Coming from a rural area, I had no idea just how high the groundhog population is in the city!)
It is amazing and heart-wrenching to see just how important these small plots of land are to our farmers. They take care of their soil. This land provides them with a connection to Kentucky to help them feel at home. It’s also a way for them to continue their farming legacy and to grow culturally important crops to share with the next generation.
To see a Nepali farmer share the medicinal importance of bitter melon, a Burmese farmer telling you their favorite roselle and spinach recipes, or the Somali farmers showing off their 15-foot-tall corn reminds me of why we are doing what we do.
Food is medicine. Food is community. And everyone deserves to grow and eat what they choose.
Jane Evans is the program director of Common Earth Gardens, a program of Catholic Charities of Louisville. To learn more, visit cclou.org
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