Dallas
church produces a bountiful harvest for
Dallas' hungry
by Sam Hodges
Texas is a land of megachurches, some with tens of thousands of members and
hundreds of people on staff. But when it comes to providing needy people with
fresh vegetables, the tiny Episcopal Church of Our Saviour puts the big churches
in the shade.
Since first planting a community garden five years ago, the Pleasant Grove church has produced 18,000 pounds - 72,000 servings - of organically grown produce for food pantries. This from a church where the pastor is part time, the annual budget is about $40,000, and Sunday finds maybe 30 people in the pews.
"We're a little-bitty church but doing a pretty good ministry," said Becky Smith, vestry member and garden coordinator.
Our Saviour provides the land and organization but depends on outsiders, everyone from retirees to home-schoolers to a kindly Jamaican immigrant who harvests with a machete. They rent plots for $30 a year, agreeing to give at least 10 percent of their vegetables to food pantries, and to help tend six plots that are strictly for charity.
A recent Tuesday morning found a dozen people of various ages and ethnicities, some church members and some not, working in the 55-by-100-foot garden. They harvested squash, eggplant, Swiss chard, onions and carrots. They picked tomatoes from caged vines taller than Dirk Nowitzki.
"If you see a weed that needs pulling, be my guest!" called out Ms. Smith, a 61-year-old grandmother who cooks breakfast in the church kitchen every Tuesday for those who come to help.
This Tuesday's haul would weigh in at 59 pounds. By noon Ms. Smith and her volunteers had the vegetables at the Southeast Dallas Emergency Food Center. Grateful clients were claiming them even before Ms. Smith and crew left.
Fans of Our Saviour's garden say its influence extends to fostering community in the fast-changing Pleasant Grove area and providing education for many, including those studying to be master gardeners. Our Saviour also has inspired bigger churches to try vegetable gardening.
"When I saw what they were able to do, I thought, 'You know, we can do this,' " said Harry Anderson, a leader of the new community garden of Dallas' Episcopal Church of St. Thomas the Apostle, which is already delivering produce to food pantries.
Staying alive
Our Saviour's garden story may seem happy, but it was born out of a fight
for survival.
The church was founded in 1955 as a mission of Dallas' Episcopal Church of the Incarnation. Members met in homes, then at a Pleasant Grove bowling alley.
By 1957, the church had moved to its one-story brick building, on a big lot off Jim Miller Road. Our Saviour would grow to about 100 families - enough for a full-time priest.
But with the years, Pleasant Grove went through a profound demographic change, eventually becoming heavily Hispanic. Our Saviour lost members and had to revert to a part-time pastor.
By 2003, fearing the Episcopal Diocese of Dallas would close their church unless it showed more vitality, Our Saviour's faithful few voted to plant a community garden.
They had land. They had, in Ms. Smith and Jack Boedeker, members who loved to garden. And they had made a friend in Don Lambert of the Dallas nonprofit Gardeners in Community Development, who wanted to help.
In May 2003, Mr. Lambert, Our Saviour members and others tilled a sunny space near the church, working in plenty of compost. That first year, with six plots, the church donated more than 1,000 pounds of vegetables.
The church doubled its yield the next year, growing and giving away greens and root crops through the cool months.
Over time, the garden has expanded to 20 plots, and through the GICD has received funding from Heifer International for a worm farm (the castings make great fertilizer) and a beehive. Ms. Smith tends the beehive and uses the honey in the church kitchen.
Organic Gardening magazine and Aveeno, the skin care company, donated a pavilion for gardening classes and a 2,000-gallon cistern that catches rain from the pavilion roof. Families sponsored the planting of fruit trees around the church's 4 acres.
There have been struggles, including times when volunteers proved scarce. The summer of 2006 was terribly dry and the spring of 2007 terribly wet.
But Our Saviour members see providence in such acts as nearby Umphress Road United Methodist Church sending a timely check to help with a water bill, and Boy Scout Troop 783 hand-watering fruit trees during the drought.
Growing in faith
The garden hasn't meanta windfall of new members for Our Saviour. But membership
has stabilized, and some young families involved in the garden have begun
to visit the church.
Lay leaders such as Jackie Swafford and Sophia Brown say they're encouraged that the Rev'd Canon Paul Lambert of the Episcopal Diocese came to bless the garden this May. Reached by phone, he said he was highly impressed by the garden and the church.
"It's a lively community of faith, and they're willing to take that faith and serve others," said Canon Lambert, no relation to Don Lambert of GICD.
Canon Lambert - soon to be ordained as bishop suffragan, or the diocese' second-in-command - has told Our Saviour to come up with a 20-year plan.
Members don't mind planning,
but they'd rather plant. Among their latest projects is a vineyard. "We want
to make our own communion wine," Ms. Smith said.
—Sam Hodges is a staff writer for The Dallas Morning News. From
that publication's
Web site..
