When third-grade teacher Callie Barrett decided to start a school garden at Woodmore Elementary, she knew nothing about growing food. Despite having two farming sisters, she was a horticultural innocent. What she did know was that Woodmore, located just a mile from Brainerd High School, is surrounded by a food desert, which the USDA defines as typically low-income areas where access to healthy affordable food is limited.
Using funds from a grant she received with help from Tennessee Aquarium senior horticulturist Charlene Nash, Barrett dug in. Literally, since the grant stipulated that soil improvement be part of establishing the school garden. The result was a 33-foot by 12-foot garden that has become a source of delight and sustenance to the Woodmore community.
“When the kids come out for recess, they’ll eat straight from the garden,” Barrett said. But they don’t just harvest the fruits of Barrett’s labor. “They help me pull up grass,” she said. “Sometimes [they] pull out a plant by accident,” she adds, laughing. They also ask to help with watering during their recess. “They want to be involved,” Barrett said.
Much of the food from the garden goes to families in the school community. Barrett told me, with obvious pride and enthusiasm, that she sometimes receives pictures of the meals that families created from the produce she gave them. The rest of the food goes to the Hope Community Fridge located at Doing What We Can Homeless Outreach near the BP station on Brainerd Road. Barrett will post on the Woodmore Gardens Instagram page what food she has put in the fridge, which is free and accessible 24 hours a day, so that families who didn’t get food straight from the garden can pick it up from the fridge. “The community fridge is a big partner for us,” she said. Eventually, Barrett would like to have a community fridge at Woodmore.
Just as Barrett seemed to be hitting her stride as a food grower (she told me that last year was their biggest production year), she got word that a large portable classroom will soon be plunked down on top of the garden. The news came at the beginning of summer break when she was out of town. Despite strong protest from Barrett, her colleagues and even Woodmore’s administration, the placement of the portable could not be changed.