Agency wants to bring farm-to-table recipe to run-down south Macon area

When he was growing up in Macon, it wasn’t uncommon for Danny Glover to trade fresh peppers and tomatoes grown at his grandmother’s home on Bowden Street and a family friend’s yard nearby.

Now, Glover is seeking to bring one of those properties — vacant for 15 years and overgrown with weeds — and a neighborhood near Second Street back to life.

One South Community Development Corp. — an agency founded by Glover — has a plan to create the first “agrihood” in Georgia by turning blighted south Macon properties into a community garden and farmland.

One South is one of 70 national finalists for a grant from ArtPlace America that could fund the garden, farm and a farm-to-table restaurant. The nonprofit has also started raising money for the urban renewal project.

Glover recently presented the plan to Macon-Bibb County commissioners. Getting their support is vital to the neighborhood redevelopment, he said.

“We feel like this project not only touches southside residents but touches other various parts of the city,” he said. “If this grows to a certain level, we’ll be able to supply food and produce to other food deserts within this city. This letter of support is huge for us and gives us our marching papers to move forward.”

In the next couple of months the first crop — collard greens — will start being grown on what will become a 5,000-square-foot community garden. So far, One South has raised a little more than half of the estimated $7,500 needed to create the Bowden Street garden, the first phase of the project.

The organization met with a landscaper in recent days to develop plans to clear the lot.

The second phase would entail converting more than 2 acres near Grants Chappel Alley and Second Street into farmland. The concept follows the farm-to-table movement, where an assortment of vegetables are grown in bulk primarily for other businesses and agencies, including restaurants. There would also be a restaurant on site where people could enjoy the freshly picked produce.

Glover estimates that acquiring the properties for the farm could cost between $21,000 and $35,000. It could cost as much as another $60,000 to complete that phase.

“A lot of the (Macon-Bibb County) blight projects have been cool, but I feel like this one is the only one that touches people on every aspect and every level of life: food, safety, health, physical activities, getting our seniors out working and also beautification,” Glover said.

Macon-Bibb spokesman Chris Floore said the One South initiative is similar to other neighborhood groups that are being proactive in bettering their communities.

“It’s actually much more sustainable if the neighbors take leadership and control of the process,” he said.

Agrihood success

One South is following the “agrihood” template first used in Detroit by the Michigan Urban Farming Initiative.

The Michigan nonprofit has redeveloped 3 acres of land on the city’s north end into the “epicenter of urban agriculture.” Glover was able to see the evidence of that renewal during a visit to Detroit, and he said he’s spoken with the creator about how both cities could work together.

“Those are the types of relationships we’re trying to build,” Glover said. “We know it’s a new concept that hasn’t been done in Georgia. We’re trying to show our citizens and neighbors this has been done in other places and it’s been successful. If we invest into it, it can put our city on the map. We can be the standard-bearers in Georgia for how we convert blighted and abandoned property into farmland.”

One South would use the expertise of people in the south Macon community — such as gardener and retiree Philip Tutt — to help cultivate the urban greenspace.

“It was a nice neighborhood when I moved,” said Tutt, who has lived on Bowden since 1969. “As people moved out and started renting out, you know renters have a habit of not keeping up the property like the owners do.”

Behind Bowden is Knott Street Lane, a tiny road that now has just two houses that people still live in. One of homeowners is Jerome Moss, who recalls a time when there were more houses along the lane and another street that’s no longer there.

Moss joked last week that he knows crops will flourish because of how quickly the vegetation sprouts up on the blighted properties just a stone’s throw from his dwelling. He and his neighbor, Floyd Williams, have some favorite foods — collard greens, okra and tomatoes — they say they’d like to see grown on the farm.

Across the street from the 63-year-old’s home now is a pile of old tires, broken glass and other trash that trespassers have dumped.

“I think it’ll be a beautiful thing around here because right now, like you see, this pile of rubbish has still been over there for about a year,” Moss said.

The Gateway Heights community garden and farm can be the groundwork for some of One South’s larger goal: creating four neighborhood organizations that could help transform some of south Macon’s most neglected neighborhoods.

Over the last year, One South has expanded from a small operation to a team of officers and an executive board.

“We’re going through this process to show our neighbors that this is how it’s done,” Glover said. “It can happen.”

This story was originally published July 28, 2017 at 4:02 PM with the headline "Agency wants to bring farm-to-table recipe to run-down south Macon area."