A Winona woman and her church are giving back to those in two counties through an outreach community garden sponsored by her church, Columbiana United Methodist Church.
Debra Sykes said she began the Seeds of Unity Community Garden as a way to do outreach and connect with other churches, and since 2009 the church has been providing fresh vegetables in Montgomery County.
However, with an unexpected move to Vaiden, Sykes and Columbiana are able to reach out to those in Carroll County as well, all while fulfilling the last commandment that Jesus left to the Disciples.
Matthew 28:19-20 states: “Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”
“I’ve always worked with the youth at church, and the garden is something that I kind of wanted to do as an outreach,” Sykes said.
She said she uses the garden as a way to connect with other churches, and to give the youth something to do.
“We teach basic Bible principals, and we used the garden to do that. It is faith-based,” she said.
She said there’s one rule to the garden: No one eats of the first fruits, the first harvest is given away to those in the community.
“It teaches them to think about others before themselves, and it teaches humbleness. Before we can touch anything or eat anything ourselves, we give the first fruits away,” Sykes said.
She said the harvest is given to the elderly, sick and shut-in and people who love gardening but can’t because of sickness.
“We do not enjoy it until we give the first fruit away,” Sykes said. “It also teaches them to be generous, good stewards, sharing and responsibility. They have to be responsible on a certain level, especially with the whole process of the garden from planting to harvesting. They help take care of the garden throughout the whole process. It also teaches communication and how to communicate with other kids and it teaches them teamwork.
“The garden can be used as a tool to teach quite a few things. I don’t know if people realize that or really think about that in that way. Certain things like being humble and that comes with being thankful and grateful. Without God creating the Earth, we couldn’t be able to do this.”
Sykes said it also teaches the parable of the Vinedresser where Jesus tells the disciples “I am the vine and you are the branches…”
“That’s important to our everyday life, bearing good fruit and bearing the fruit of the spirit: love, joy, peace, longsuffering. That’s important, but it was hard for them. Especially when you invest your time into something you want to enjoy it. They didn’t like it. ‘You mean to tell us, we got to give it away after all this hard work.’ But we teach other people first before themselves. I think that’s one of the beauties of the garden.”
She said when they give away their harvest, their youth tell others “Jesus loves you and so do we.”
Sykes said once she ran her idea by church members, they were on board with the community garden. “A lot of members did kind of help. We use it as the outreach,” she said.
Originally, the location of the garden was in Winona, but it was recently moved to Sykes’ family property in Vaiden.
“One of my neighbors, Mr. Jeff Rogers, across the street from me, let us use the back of his house for the garden. But there were big oak trees, and it didn’t have much sunlight. We used it for years. They started to work on the area so we moved to property in Vaiden and put fence around it,” she said.
Sykes said she was afraid that she would do all the work and deer would come and have a feast off of their harvest.
By moving to Vaiden, it gave her another opportunity – her church member Ontennicia Boclear is an extension agent with the Carroll County Extension Service. Boclear was able to use her resources to help Sykes reach more people and give her tips on how and what to grow in the soil.
“She’s been able to give us a lot of tips. Now we’re having more people who want to help with the garden and more people know about it in that area and we have more hands in the garden,” she said.
Although she was worried about the harvest, it hasn’t been a bad payoff for her. Sykes said they usually grow squash, cucumbers and tomatoes.
“That’s the biggest thing the kids enjoy. They don’t really eat squash, but they love the cucumbers and tomatoes.”
She said they also grow green beans, peas, corn, zucchini, watermelon, collards, mustards, turnips, bell peppers, jalapeno peppers, banana peppers and okra.
She said the kids have fun working in the garden and seeing the harvest they helped to grow.
“When they get together, I don’t care what they do. They’ll call it fun, especially if it’s a group of them. We try to get them out there as a group. Not all are out there at the same time, but I try to go at least once or twice a month.”
She said the location of the garden is 500 County Road 16, Winona. Right on the border of Montgomery and Carroll counties. “It’s right off of 407 and anyone is welcome to come help,” she said.
