Huntingdon College
Office of Communications
| July 23, 2009 For immediate release: |
Huntingdon College NEWS RELEASE |
Church in Ravaged Katrina Area Receives Grant to Create “A Patch of Eden”Montgomery, Ala.—Next year at this time, lush gardens surrounding Bayou La Batre First United Methodist Church will be filled with families and individuals harvesting home-grown organic foods to fill their pantries, if the vision planted by Senior Pastor Connie Farnell is cultivated. It is that vision that prompted the Rural Leadership Initiative (RLI), a project of Huntingdon College’s Paul A. Duffey Institute for Church Leadership and the Alabama-West Florida Conference of the United Methodist Church, funded by the Sybil H. Smith Trust, to grant Farnell and her congregation $8,000 to seed the garden that will next year feed the hungry. Farnell’s vision was born from a combination of frustration about inability to meet the needs of impoverished families in the area, where 17% live below the poverty level and the high school dropout rate is 36%, while looking out at 11 acres of unused land surrounding the church. Situated 60 feet above the water table, the hill where FUMC is located is known as “the safest spot in the bayou.” Although the church used to offer a food pantry, the shelves are bare because of lack of donations and economic circumstances since Hurricane Katrina devastated the area in 2005. “Since serving this congregation for the past nine months,” Farnell wrote in her grant application, “I am certain we have turned away, on average, five to six families per week who need sustenance. Our excuse, ‘We used to have a food pantry,’ is no longer sufficient. […] We as a church must address this need. It is our duty.“ The project, referred to as “A Patch of Eden,” includes a small prayer garden planted with herbs and a larger layout of “Eden Patches,” 4' by 24' each, to be adopted by willing participants for a small $5 fee. Manna Food Bank of Pensacola, Florida, is donating organically grown greenhouse plants for the project. The project depends on donated services and goods for its success, from schools creating recycling projects around compost, to farmers and members donating time to prepare the ground, a nursery donating irrigation equipment and other goods, and juveniles in need of community service hours tending the gardens. In a third phase of the project, the church plans to cultivate hot red peppers for drying, grinding, packaging, and selling; the proceeds from which would offset the costs involved in preparing the “Spice of the Bayou” organic paprika, and the products present on shelves across the area would bring further awareness to the project. The grant will fund the cost of water, landscape timbers, and other start-up expenses. FUMC Bayou La Batre is a small church of just 127 members, but the commitment to the project comes from a combination of church member resources, businesses, and other individuals in the community. “It is our hope to be a community oriented toward healing God’s Creation, accomplished through the relationship of Discipleship,” wrote Farnell. “We can ‘feed’ our community physically and spiritually, loving God and neighbor.” Each year, RLI brings approximately 20 pastors from rural churches in the Alabama-West Florida Conference of the United Methodist Church to the Huntingdon College campus to motivate, support, prepare, and train clergy in rural churches for the transformation of rural congregations and communities. The sessions are provided free of charge to the clergy participants and funded by a generous grant from the Sybil H. Smith Trust of Mobile, Alabama. In addition to training, pastors who complete the course are eligible to apply for mini-grants to seed new ministries from the funds provided by the Smith Trust. Most of the projects funded were granted up to $2,000 for their ministries, but the Eden project was selected for a special grant of $8,000. The Reverend Mike Gaby, who was the director of the Rural Leadership Initiative during the granting process, read all of the proposals. “Two things about this project especially impressed the grant committee,” said Gaby. “First, that the project involved so many different people and organizations—not only engaging others in the community, but also those in the church. Second, that the project is sustainable; therefore this grant is a catalyst for an ongoing ministry. This is a ministry that doesn’t just give something away, but allows people to be involved in multiple ways. In other words, this is not ministry to someone but with someone, and it is self-replicating.” Huntingdon College, grounded in the Judeo-Christian tradition of the United Methodist Church, is committed to nurturing growth in faith, wisdom, and service and to graduating individuals prepared to succeed in a rapidly changing world. Founded in 1854, Huntingdon is a coeducational liberal arts college. The College motto is “Enter to grow in wisdom; go forth to apply wisdom in service.” The first planting in the Eden project will occur in the spring of 2010. ### Su Ofe | |
