wfn.org | Camp Dogwood springs to life, mobilizes to battle hunger

["NewsDesk" <NewsDesk@UMCOM.ORG>]

July 1, 2003 News media contact: Kathy Gilbert7(615)742-54707Nashville, Tenn
ALL-DM-FR-P{343}

NOTE: This feature may be used as a sidebar to UMNS story #342. Photographs
are available.

A UMNS and UMC.org Feature
By Ray Waddle*

The soil at Camp Dogwood is blooming again with fresh vegetables and new hope
- the hope of becoming a national model of hunger relief, agricultural
renewal and community uplift.

Camp Dogwood, a historic rural tract of 250 acres near Nashville, Tenn., is
being worked into farmland that will serve as a fresh-food supply link to
low-income urban neighborhoods - and a business opportunity to youngsters.

Produce raised there this summer - as much as 40 tons - will be brought to
town and sold at makeshift farmers' markets at two United Methodist churches.

The aim is to revive neighborhood economies that lack grocery stores and
vital businesses by linking unused farmland and urban need.

"We're on our way: We have 1,500 tomato plants in the ground, 3,000 feet of
potatoes, 100 hills of squash, 600 feet of cucumbers," says the Rev. Thomas
Henderson, the United Methodist minister who is executive director of Camp
Dogwood.

"And we have markets set up for underserved communities that don't have
access to fresh produce. The church is in a position to step forward to lift
up those local economies."

Dogwood is seen as a piece in the bigger picture of food sustainability -
that is, the promotion of local agriculture, community gardens and
small-scale farmers' markets to generate local farm productivity and reliable
neighborhood access to nutritional food.

The camp hopes to yield other fruit: Release the entrepreneurial business
spirit in young people. Organizers plan to expose inner-city youngsters to
the land, teach them to raise crops there, and price and sell the produce at
markets in town.

Camp Dogwood is owned by the Women's Division of the United Methodist Church
and run by Bethlehem Centers of Nashville. Young people who use the Bethlehem
community center will visit Dogwood later this summer with the aim of
building new relationships between land and people.

The property already has a historic place in modern Methodism. Dogwood, with
roots going back to the late 1920s, was the first location in Middle
Tennessee for African-American youngsters to attend camp.

Over the last 20 years, circumstances and lack of funding led to neglect of
the grounds. Then a couple of years ago, Henderson, based in South Carolina
at the time, was invited to revitalize Dogwood and refine its mission: Open
the camp up again to young people and add an agricultural dimension to help
urban neighborhoods.

"I stepped onto (the) grounds and got a look at all that prime bottom land,
and within two minutes, I said, 'Yes,'" says Henderson, who has a farming
background and has been agricultural consultant for the United Methodist
Board of Global Ministries.

Establishing farm production and rehabilitating Dogwood as a youth camp will
take money, and one of Henderson's job is fundraising. Next year's goal is to
raise $120,000 or more for renovations and for hiring a farm manager. For
now, one acre at Dogwood is in food production, and that could soon grow to
seven.

Henderson says churches all over the country could take a Dogwood approach -
put a little land into productivity (even on church property), create
farmers' markets and, beyond that, promote new small businesses in depressed
neighborhoods by serving as a base for direct marketing.

"The church is full of volunteers and business people who could help," he
says. "I think the potential for Methodist properties is unlimited."

Meanwhile, church volunteers from suburban Nashville were getting their hands
dirty at Dogwood in May, cultivating the first acre of produce and
spiritually reconnecting with the land.

"It's hard work, but we're having a grand time," says Adrienne Ames, a United
Methodist laywoman and hospital administration consultant. "It's exciting to
see Dogwood come alive again."

To learn more about Camp Dogwood, call Joyce Searcy at 
Bethlehem Centers of Nashville, (615) 329-3386.

# # #

*Waddle, former religion editor at The Tennessean newspaper, is a writer and
lecturer in Nashville, Tenn.

 
 

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United Methodist News Service
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