Beardsley Community Farm aims to fight food insecurity and provide education through their community gardens.
Started in 1998, Beardsley Farm operates within the public Malcolm Martin Park at 1741 Reynolds St. It’s funded through Knox County and donations. The farm has around 30 garden plots on their main site, with most of them for refugee families to use. They also service 17 plots around Knoxville for the community to use.
Education coordinator Sarah Heizenroth talked about Beardsley Farms’ main goal in providing community garden space.
“Our mission is to promote food security through produce donations,” Heizenroth said. “We also provide education and access to land and resources for gardening.”
Co-director of Beardsley Farms Charlotte Rodina talked about the gardening and resources that they provide.
“We also provide a lot of land and resources for gardening, and so that can look like providing space here onsite or off site for people to garden,” Rodina said. “Also providing plants, so tomato plants, basil plants … different things for people to grow at home or here, and then different seeds for them as well.”
They grow around five tons of produce, which they donate to several organizations. A few of those organizations include Mobile Meals Kitchen, several women’s shelters, food pantries and the Thrive after school program. A map of the pantries and gardens that they serve can be found on their website.
“We grow about 10,000 lbs. of produce in this park, and all the produce that we grow is helped to be grown with our volunteers that sign up,” Heizenroth said.
The farm has three full-time staff members, one part-time staff member and four AmeriCorps members that serve for around a year. Heizenroth started out as an AmeriCorps volunteer before becoming a staff member at the farm.
People can also volunteer to serve at the farm. They had to limit their volunteers last year due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but have since been able to increase the number of people who can volunteer at one time. Their website has directions for volunteering at the farm.
“Numbers have definitely gone up a lot this year, and we’ve been getting great volunteers,” Heizenroth said.
Along with gardening space and produce, Beardsley Farms educates about food, cooking and gardening for all ages. They work within schools as well as providing older classes.
“We do a variety of education for all ages,” Heizenroth said. “We host field trips on the farm with kiddos, usually school groups, or after school groups, or summer camps. We’ve been partnering with Ijams in providing fun workshops for adults.”
On Dec. 9, they will hold a wreath-making class for adults, as well as a natural dyeing class in January. They also plan on doing their Snow Day fundraising event in February, which brings several restaurants together for a soup-making contest. These events can be found on their events calendar.
“We also do free community classes, like cooking classes,” Heizenroth said. “We’ll lead Head Start preschoolers in nutrition lessons. So, we do a variety of different things.”
Another educational program that they just started is Beardsley Bookworms. They source their books through bookstores like The Bottom to provide free books, recipes and ingredients for students at Dogwood Elementary and South Knox Elementary.
Along with these education programs, the farm works to bring awareness to different causes and justice, mostly related to food insecurity. They work with several Black-owned businesses and organizations, food equity services and Indigenous rights organizations.
Beardsley Community Farm grounds, an urban nonprofit community dedicated to food security and sustainable agriculture in Knoxville, features its 'adopt-a-spot' initiative. Photo taken Wednesday Nov. 24, 2021.
“We’re promoting food security, so that’s a social justice aspect of people having access to fresh, healthy produce, so that’s mainly what we’re doing,” Heizenroth said. “But we do try to buy local and support local, and encourage people to vote and be involved in their community along with growing food.”
Along with more access to food on a large scale, Heizenroth hopes that Beardsley Farm can continue to serve the community as they become more self-sustainable.
“My hope is that more of the community farms and places that we are reaching out to can become more empowered and use less of us, because they can provide food and grow food on their own,” Heizenroth said. “That’s really kind of our goal, is to have people learn these skills and take them away.”
Rodina talked about expanding the farm and what they cover, specifically with the education programs and where their produce goes.
“Lately, we’ve been thinking about expanding our educational programing,” Rodina said. “So, this coming year, we will continue serving the community by providing more school garden programming at South Knox Elementary, Dogwood Elementary and then the Western Heights Boys and Girls Club.”
“We’re also hoping to redirect some of our produce in a way that is more meaningful and impactful for our clients. So, generally we will donate large quantities of produce to somewhere like Western Heights Baptist Center … and that has been a good model for what we’ve had the capacity to do. But we were thinking more about signing individuals up for shares, people who are interested in creating a healthier lifestyle and working more closely with clients and families to incorporate more fresh produce into their diets,” Rodina said.
Beardsley Community Farm continues to serve the community by providing gardening, education and awareness resources for the Knoxville community. They have reached people from all over the city, and they continue to receive a large amount of volunteer help.
“I think our biggest impact is just being a really welcoming space for people to learn about gardening and cooking,” Rodina said.
This article has updated to reflect accurate information.
