![]() ![]() By operating through a relational network, … we can respond to the actual needs of our community and to the offerings of those with gifts to give.” “Instead, we work with preexisting organizations and build relationships. “We’re not interested in creating new infrastructures,” Leslie said. Underlying all of this is a shared belief that local efforts by faith communities present a unique opportunity for relationships - to food, land and each other - to lead the way toward restorative justice in the mending of creation.ĭuring their remarks at Eden’s annual spring convocation the previous day, Leslie and Brown, who is a national leader in creating Black food ecosystems, highlighted the connections among food security, pastoral care and grassroots efforts to offer healthy food to people in need. Its latest commitment is to support a pastor in nearby Herculaneum, Missouri, who plans to turn the site of her town’s historic racially segregated schoolhouse into a center for place-based witness and healing. What began as a simple garden now includes gleaning efforts with farmers two states away, as well as local community support through teaching new gardeners basic skills and providing supplies for simple container gardens. ![]() It is about the restorative work of entire systems through relationship and collective imagination. Louis.īut the four-year-old project is about more than fresh veggies. In 2022, through the efforts of dozens of volunteers and a handful of farmers, the project grew, gleaned and delivered over 14,000 pounds of fresh produce for distribution by feeding ministries and food banks in St. They’re looking at the garden of Eden - or, officially, the Eden Gleaning and Garden Project. Karen Pepmeier, co-director of the project and a smattering of Eden alumni and students. Heber Brown III, the founder of the Black Church Food Security Network the Rev. “This was all a parking lot, so we had to bring in truckloads of soil to get started, but we add a little more each year,” Leslie says to the group, which includes the Rev. “The okra really love that,” says Leslie, the Harold Peters Schultz Professor of Pastoral Theology and Care at Eden and co-director of the garden project.īy late summer, the gorgeous, conical okra pods will be silhouetted against the blue of the late afternoon sky, their organic architecture echoing the spires of the seminary’s main academic building. Kristen Leslie points out to the group, it’s warmed by full, direct sun, even on this chilly April day. It is now a patch of bare earth, with no sign of the greens, tomatoes and other food that will sprout there. Louis, Missouri, a gathering of leaders considers what will rise in this spot later this year. But this is no contruction site. In an inconspicuous corner of the campus of Eden Theological Seminary in St.
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