Shopper Blog: Community gardens growing to address food insecurity in East Knoxville
EAST KNOXVILLE
Ground broken in East Knoxville on new community gardens
Carol Z. Shane, Shopper News
The issue of food insecurity in East Knoxville continues to be addressed proactively, thanks to the efforts of Knox County Community Gardens & Growers Alliance.
On Oct. 14 and 15, representatives from Alliance member organizations, along with friends and supporters, gathered for two landmark events.
Christopher Battle, the former minister whose Battlefield Farms & Gardens literally grew out of his 2018 “gleaning fence” at Tabernacle Baptist, presided at the Saturday groundbreaking for the “concrete garden” at 107 Chestnut St. It’ll be finished the end of October, with beds available for adoption early next year.
“That’s going to attract people,” said Denzel Grant, founder and executive director of Turn Up KNOX, a nonprofit that seeks to reduce gun violence and support families of its victims.
The following day, a ribbon-cutting was held for the Payne Avenue Community Garden, adjacent to Payne Avenue Baptist Church on Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue. The largest community church garden within this historical Black community, it now has 36 garden beds, with plans to have 100 by its completion. The garden is less than a year old and thriving.
“It’s an example of what a flourishing garden can look like in the community,” said Battle. “It’s got all this beauty, all this food in a community that is plagued with gun violence, drugs and the whole shebang. Yet we’ve got this beautiful place where people can come, garden and find peace and serenity, as well as have fresh produce. They can grow here what they maybe can’t afford at the grocery store.”
Battle is executive director for the community gardens alliance.
Also celebrating the garden’s opening were Master Gardener Caesar Stair III and Femeika Elliott, since September the chief of operations at the alliance. The two met at last year’s “Unite for Change Food Security Social Hackathon” presented by the United Way of Greater Knoxville. Stair, a hands-on volunteer with the alliance, approached Elliott and said he’d been waiting for someone to show up in order to fulfill the vision of the organization, and she was that person.
Elliott not only remakes soul food into healthy versions with her business Meik Meals, she is also the founder of Rooted East Knoxville Collective and a passionate advocate for food-based healing and wellness.
“You won’t find a finer person, with more integrity, dedicated and committed to her goal of trying to help this community,” said Stair. “She values each individual person and knows that they can grow their own vegetables and in effect, as Chris says, ‘be free.’”
Elliott said, “My role is to bridge the gap of communications in resource allocation between agriculturists, community gardens, food justice organizations, independent growers and others involved in food systems in our great city of Knoxville.” One of her biggest contributions so far has been optimizing the organization’s social media presence, in turn bringing fresh energy and making the alliance more multigenerational.
“Whatever your capacity is within the food system of Knox County, we want more members,” Elliott said. “When people come to the (alliance) website, they can register their organization for free, find out where community gardens are operating, what independent growers are where. It’s an all-stop shop for all things food systems.”
Visit knoxgardenalliance.org.
POWELL
Morning Pointe brings back memories and helps create new ones for senior residents
Al Lesar, Shopper News
There’s a secret ingredient in Cleo Wayman’s peanut butter pie she won't be divulging any time soon.
As a resident of Morning Pointe Senior Living in Powell, she relied on a recipe from her younger years for the facility's friendly baking competition last month, which featured two residents and six families of residents.
“I’m trying to let our residents experience as many fond memories as I can,” said Beverly Smith, life enrichment director at the Powell location. “We try to base our activities on that.”
Once a month, Smith and her staff develop and plan an activity for residents and families, giving everyone an opportunity to enjoy a positive experience together.
Smith's relationship with Morning Pointe is personal
Smith, a Powell resident, was sold on Morning Pointe’s mission long before she was an employee.
“My father was here for three years before he passed,” said Smith, a home-school teacher who hadn’t worked outside the home in 25 years. “He liked his sweets. A month after he passed, I brought doughnuts for the staff. I was fine until I got to the nurses station, then I burst into tears.
“I had been surprised to hear how much the staff enjoyed my dad. I just thought of him as pretty cranky.”
A year passed before she returned to the facility. She came as a volunteer and fit in perfectly. From her volunteer status, she was hired to her current position, which she has held for three years.
“Everything I had done in home-schooling my children translated well into this job,” she said. “It takes planning and some creativity.”
Helping Morning Pointe residents share their voice
Just as Smith was settling into her role, the COVID-19 pandemic hit. Senior living facilities were significantly affected by restrictions on personal contact.
At Morning Pointe, the response was simple. The residents wanted to sing.
“There wasn’t a lot of music around here, and the residents missed it,” Smith said. “A few of the residents said they had been in a choir and would really like to get one going.”
Smith wasn’t a singer and didn’t know much about getting a choir together, but she was willing to learn. With the help of a couple residents with choir backgrounds, she got the ball rolling in January 2021.
Seventeen residents worked hard to enter the Seniors Got Talent competition at the Bijou Theatre. Their rendition of “Bye Bye Love" made popular by Knoxville’s own The Everly Brothers didn’t win, but it sent them on their way as performers.
Since then, they have entertained for various holidays and special events all around East Tennessee.
For Smith, she has gained more from these experiences than she has invested.
“People don’t realize what they could get out of spending time with this generation,” Smith said. “The wisdom and experiences they have are so special.”
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WEST KNOXVILLE
Beaver Creek Kayak Club's mission keeps growing
Nancy Anderson, Shopper News
“What a great weekend to be a member of Beaver Creek Kayak Club,” said President Charlie Austin. Members of BCKC were busy Beavers in Karns on Oct. 7.
The group started the day early with the annual fall cleanup of Roy Arthur Storm Water Park, Beaver Creek stream beds, and all of Harrell Road. They collected 13 large bags of trash weighing about 40 pounds each. That's a reduction from years past.
“I believe we are making a difference in the community," Austin said. "There’s still a lot of trash to be picked up, but not as much as in the past. There was less trash out there this fall, although we were surprised to find car parts in the creek.
“When we first started the cleanup about six years ago, we had 40 to 50 bags of trash. So that just shows that the BCKC efforts to 'Clear, Clean, and Care For' Beaver Creek are working,” Austin said.
The day ended with the third annual BCKC No-Yak event held at Creekside food truck park on 6729 Malone Creek Drive, where more than 40 members gathered for dinner and fireside chats about the future.
Creekside welcomed the group with signature cocktails with names such as “Log Jam,” “the Beev,” and “Charlie’s Launch.”
“The No-Yak event is a chance to celebrate the end of the season. Our season here is very long because we have good weather, but most people don’t float the Creek beyond October," Austin said. "We just wanted to get together and talk about everything we’ve accomplished this year and goals we hope to accomplish in the future. It’s just us hanging out together and you don’t have to bring a kayak. It’s only fitting that we have the end-of-the-year event at Creekside."
BCKC plans to expand the idea of caring for Beaver Creek outside the Karns and Powell into Halls, Hardin Valley and Solway. Clayton Park in Halls will eventually be the beginning of the 44-mile water trail.
The club plans to adopt and clean any road that crosses Beaver Creek from Clayton Park to Melton Hill Lake and place a new dock at the Karns Rugby Park.
They have a goal of installing 11 launches along Beaver Creek. So far, there are six.
“The progress we’ve made proves that a civic organization and the government can work together in harmony. We don’t always have to be out for blood. (Knox County) Commission Chair Terry Hill is a great support and we were pleased to have her at the No-Yak event. This just proves that we can work together to pull a big project off.”
The busy weekend didn’t end there. The group gathered for a kayak float on Melton Hill Lake Oct. 8.
Info: Find Beaver Creek Kayak Club on Facebook
OPINION
War seems closer to home when you know the people fighting it |
Leslie Snow, Shopper News
It was the summer of 2011. Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros were singing about home, and I was driving an SUV full of Israeli teenagers to Walmart for a uniquely American experience. The kids wanted to see what it was like to live in the land of plenty. They wanted to buy jeans and T-shirts, sugary American snacks, and electronics to bring home to their families. I watched in amazement as they wandered through the store gleefully, as if they had landed in some magical kingdom full of wonders.
The teenagers, all 15 at the time, were part of a community service exchange program offered through the Knoxville Jewish Alliance. The camp’s name, “Tikkun Olam,” means “repair the world." It’s a concept in Judaism that compels followers to go out in the world and do as much good as possible. The summer my youngest son, Ethan, participated, a shy boy named Sahar stayed with us for two weeks. He worked in our community, then the two boys boarded a plane for Israel where Ethan stayed with Sahar's family.
I remember how uncomfortable Sahar seemed when he arrived at our house, his big green eyes taking in our big American home, our green backyard, and our giant dog. I hugged him awkwardly and asked what he wanted to eat for dinner. His face brightened. “I’d like to try a cheeseburger,” he said, shyly. “If it’s not too much trouble.”
The cheeseburger was the icebreaker and things got easier after that. He and Ethan bonded over typical teenage boy things. They played video games and yelled at the TV. They stayed up late talking, went swimming, and hung out at the lake.
Some days, the other exchange students would wind up at our house, too. I remember blowing up air mattresses, unrolling sleeping bags, and popping countless bags of popcorn just to listen to the sounds of laughter coming from my basement.
“It’s amazing,” I remember saying to my husband one night when the kids were sitting around a bonfire. “You can bring teenagers together from different cultures and different parts of the world and they seem to make an instant connection.” It was like that for Ethan and Sahar. They became fast friends after just one cheeseburger.
Last night, Ethan called to tell me he’d reached out to Sahar after the terrorist attacks in Israel. Sahar is 27 now and engaged to be married. He’s just been recalled to the Israeli army to fight Hamas terrorists hiding in Gaza. He said he doesn’t know if he’ll be fighting on the front lines, but he’ll find out soon.
I’ve been glued to my television these last few days, thinking about the unspeakable human suffering unfolding in the Middle East. I’ve seen tragedies play out on the news before, but this one has hit me particularly hard. It feels like 9/11 all over again. Maybe it’s a failure of human nature or a lack of imagination on my part, but war seems closer to home and more tragic when you know the people fighting it. It’s personal for me in ways that go beyond my Jewish faith.
I can’t stop thinking about Sahar, Tal, Sagi, and all the other Israeli students I met when my children participated in Camp Tikkun Olam. Teenagers who came into our home, sat around our dinner table, and became part of our family. Children, who joined together on a mission to repair the world and who are now young adults, fighting to save their homeland.
Leslie Snow may be reached at snowcolumn@aol.com
This article originally appeared on Knoxville News Sentinel: Shopper News brings you the latest happenings in your community
