On last week Muhiyyidin of Black Lives Matter Charleston, put the call out to a group of us to help out at Fresh Future Farms in North Charleston, South Carolina. In order to prepare for a fundraiser being planned, The CEO and founder, Germain Jenkins, needed to prepare the farm for the event. Not knowing anything about Fresh Future Farms, but noticing it was only five to ten minutes from downtown Charleston, I headed over to Success Street in North Charleston.
When I arrived, I was in shock. I had no idea that there was basically a farm in the middle of what we consider “the hood” in the Chicora/Cherokee neighborhood of North Charleston. For two days, this small team of volunteers worked to get the farm prepared for the fundraiser that was scheduled for Friday night.
Germain Jenkins, CEO, Farm & Market Director of Fresh Future Farm developed this idea (log on to www.FreshFutureFarms.org to read her story). The concept of this farm is genius because this lower-income area lacks access to grocery stores – meaning residents have no access to quality foods. Instead of just building a local corner store filled with sugary sodas and salty chips and cookies, Fresh Future Farm is the answer to a growing problem in poor, urban communities. As children, if you grew up in the hood or spent any time in lower income areas, we would walk to the closest corner store for chips, cookies, sodas and candy; simply because that was what was close and available to us as children. Here, local neighborhood kids can have access to fresh fruit and veggies!
As I assisted in hammering down wooden signs into the earth, and hanging lights, I realized that this was more than just a community garden. According to Germain, they have been working on this dream of hers since 2014. Having to deal with the politics of land and permits, I could imagine that this was a complicated dream. But, here they were, on the eve of the grand-opening fund-raiser for the farm – never let difficulties defer your dreams! The farm is filled with all of the things we love to eat, and if they haven’t grown to their full potential yet, the promise of future budding life fills the area. There are collards, spices, fig trees, rice patches, a chicken coop-home for future chickens, and a bee mill for honey. This is truly a great place to bring children for field trips and an even better location to come and purchase your fresh fruit and veggies.
On Friday, I returned to continue as a helper to get things in order for the event, and as a volunteer, I was invited to stay for the event. Because I felt slightly under-dressed, I had no plans of staying, but after seeing some familiar faces, I decided to take out my camera and stay to get some pics for the blog. The Fundraiser for Fresh Future Farms would be what most would consider a great success. The rain held off until Saturday, the tent was beautifully decorated, the gnats decided to chill outside of the tent area, and the food – well the food was banging. To think, I thought I was only coming out here to get dirty. The culinary team did an amazing job, an initial course of fresh vegetable, followed by a second course of Charleston blue crabs, oysters and chunky potato salad (Frogmore style). The third course was an amazing selection of spicy jambalaya, rice, and collard greens, which was delicious. Then, they completed the meal with an amazing cornbread dessert. I probably shouldn’t leave out the varying array of wine selections that complemented each course. The night included great conversation, a cool band and an amazing fellowship of people coming together for a great cause. Chef Ben Dennis, who was there with the group of culinary volunteers, was able to round up some neighborhood kids as special V.I.P.s for the event as well.
As a community, we MUST support Fresh Future Farms! Like their Facebook page, facebook.com/FreshFutureFarm, visit their website – www.freshfuturefarm.org , visit them today at 2008 Success Street, North Charleston, S.C. and donate to this 501-C organization. There are many of us from Charleston that have no idea that this exists, and we are the group that needs to jump on board to support such an amazing program.
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