On Saturday, May 20th, it was a beautiful sunny morning, and a great day to work on a local farm. Fellowship partnered with Cul2vate to serve at the Cul2ate farm at Ellington Agricultural Center in Nashville. It was a family affair as children and adults came out to help plant seeds, till the soil (which is not easy!), paint crop signs, and set up new stakes for planting.
During the day, Joey Lankford, the founder and Executive Director of Cul2vate, shared with the group what Cul2vate is all about and showed everyone the plethora of tomatoes that are growing in one of the greenhouses. It was really cool to see the literal fruit of their labor, as these tomatoes were the result of the hard work of the Cul2vators in Cul2vate’s discipleship program. We even had the privilege of meeting one of the Cul2vators after seeing his very own tomatoes.
It was interesting to watch one situation play out: with the farm’s location at Ellington Agricultural Center, many immigrants and refugees live nearby. While we were gathering wooden stakes at the main farm, a local family from Bhutan was bagging up piles of manure from the community manure pile for fertilizer. Joey walked up to the family to introduce himself and give them some extra stakes for their own farm. The next thing we knew, Joey had brought the family to the Cul2vate farm to let them pick fresh produce of their own and take some seeds with them, all for free. This situation has happened often at the farm with local immigrants and refugees and was a great reminder of the many avenues of ministry within this local partnership.
It was a fun first Fellowship Farm Day at Cul2vate, the first of hopefully many. Check out more pictures and video from the day below. You can learn more about Cul2vate on their website. If you’d like to get more involved, contact Emily Sutherland at .
