We love collaborating with and supporting the vibrant, creative work of community building-organizations in our city.
And this fall, we have been especially pleased to work with Trap Garden.
A Friday morning Trap Garden team getting ready to deliver vegetables from the Johnson Alternative Learning Center garden location.
Urban Farmer and Community Health Activist Rob Horton founded Trap Garden in 2014 inspired by his experiences growing up in a St. Louis, Missouri neighborhood with few fresh, healthy food options. After relocating to Nashville to attend Tennessee State University, he became frustrated again with the distance he needed to drive for grocery stores that supplied quality fresh produce. That’s when he took matters into his own hands by growing his own vegetables and herbs. He also wanted to provide assistance to others who needed better access to fresh and healthy foods.
Nowadays his Trap colleague Kanita Hutchinson says this: “Our community garden is like our grocery store without it being a grocery store.”
Trap Garden currently stewards two plots of land—one at Johnson Alternative Learning Center in South Nashville and Bordeaux Elementary School in North Nashville—spaces for growing vegetables, education and community gathering. When the pandemic hit, the folks at Trap wanted to continue to have a way to support families through distribution of vegetables. TNFP was connect to Trap by Marie Holzer, a Masters of Social Work intern with our organization. Marie obtained a grant from Slow Food’s Resilient Fund so that Trap and The Nashville Food Project could compensate Growing Together farmers for produce to distribute in the community. Beginning in September, Growing Together and TNFP's Production Gardens supplied produce for 25 families a week, which will continue for nine weeks.
A Growing Together farmer harvests “toori,” a type of mustard green beloved by the farmers who came to the United States from Bhutan.
Growing Together farmers washing and packing their harvest.
To identify families in need of vegetables, Trap partnered with Preston Taylor Ministries, and Trap organized distribution of the food—entirely through a team of community volunteer support.
Along with the bags of produce, organizers include an instructional guide to help community members learn how to grow the fresh produce they receive and prepare quick and easy meals from recipes.
And, the Growing Together farmers have been sending videos from the garden, so that those receiving the produce can feel connected to the farmers