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Anissa Garcia shovels soil at Ridglea Christian Church’s garden. Garcia has worked as a manager for the garden since February 2024. (Marissa Greene | Fort Worth Report)
” data-medium-file=”https://fortworthreport.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/IMG_2837-scaled.jpg?fit=300%2C200&ssl=1″ data-large-file=”https://fortworthreport.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/IMG_2837-scaled.jpg?fit=780%2C520&ssl=1″ tabindex=”0″ role=”button”>Anissa Garcia’s childhood often involved hands covered in soil. Growing up, she would spend mornings with her mother, tending to her family’s garden bed outside their Fort Worth home. She remembers helping her mom add mulch to the beds and planting various shades of pink and purple petunias. Years later, Garcia has taken her passion for gardening to a new venue: Ridglea Christian Church. Since February, Garcia has taught groups of volunteers at the church’s garden how to compost, sow seeds and harvest a variety of vegetables like sweet potatoes, eggplants and okra. “It’s so rewarding, especially working with volunteers that have never been out here, never been to a garden before,” she said. Congregants who oversee the garden hired Garcia to help manage the land as its operations underwent changes this year. For nearly a decade, the land at the church was donated to Tarrant Area Food Bank to be used as a learning garden.After the food bank set out to establish an agricultural hub in early 2024, the land adjacent to Ridglea Christian was given back to the church. Now, congregants are working to establish the garden as its own nonprofit. Ridglea Christian Church, located at 6720 W. Elizabeth Lane, operates a garden outside of its church. Its produce is donated to nonprofit organizations to combat food insecurity. (Marissa Greene | Fort Worth Report) Tarrant Area Food Bank currently has 48 gardens in its Community Garden Network. The support that the food bank provides varies depending on what the garden needs, said president and CEO Julie Butner. The church offered its land for a teaching garden at a time when the food bank didn’t have a space on its campus to build one, Butner said. When the agricultural hub opened, the vision was to relocate the learning garden on campus, she said. “They’ve been very generous and very kind to us and allowed us to utilize that space for as long as we have,” Butner said. “But it is very typical for us to help start a garden and then pass it to the organization that the land belongs to to manage and oversee it.” The garden at Ridglea Christian Church currently operates under a sprinkler system but is hoping to transition to drip irrigation, said Janet Lanza, who is part of the garden’s steering committee and a volunteer gardener. (Marissa Greene | Fort Worth Report) By having the agricultural hub located on the highway system, Butner said the agricultural hub is part of a larger vision for food banks to share produce and get a variety of options to people who are food insecure.Janet Lanza and Adrianne Berry, along with another congregant, tend to a smaller garden at Ridglea Christian Church. When they found out that the food bank would relocate its learning garden to its agricultural hub, they decided to take on the project. “We all agreed that our passion was feeding people in need,” Berry said. “If we could somehow come together and continue that, that’s what we want to do.” Adrianne Berry picks figs growing at Ridglea Christian Church’s garden on July 9, 2024. (Marissa Greene | Fort Worth Report)For the past several months, the pair has worked with paid garden managers and volunteers to rearrange the space to transition it from a learning garden to a high-production garden. In the mornings, groups gather to help tend to compost, expand garden beds, sow seeds and harvest produce. Since January, the garden has donated over 700 pounds of fruit and vegetables to organizations like WestAid at the Las Vegas Trail Revitalization Project, Lanza said. The garden at Ridglea Christian Church still relies on volunteers through Tarrant Area Food Bank’s Community Garden Network, an initiative that offers guidance and support to organizations seeking to improve healthy and nutritious food options through gardening. The network produced over 12,000 pounds of produce in 2023, according to the food bank’s impact report. Marcy and David Norwood work in Ridglea Christian Church’s garden as Tarrant Area Food Bank volunteers. (Marissa Greene | Fort Worth Report) Marcy and David Norwood have volunteered with the program since March. The couple likes to volunteer at the church because the food is donated to people in need, Marcy said. “When we retired, we didn’t want to take a part-time job. We wanted to do something to give back to the community,” she said. The garden currently operates under the church’s nonprofit status, but is working to establish the space as its own organization to apply for grants in the near future, Lanza said. “We’ve probably gotten enough that we can probably get through into the next year,” Lanza said. “We’re still looking for resources but what has been our saving grace are all these volunteers.” Marissa Greene is a Report for America corps member, covering faith for the Fort Worth Report. Contact her at marissa.greene@fortworthreport.org or @marissaygreene. At the Fort Worth Report, news decisions are made independently of our board members and financial supporters. 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