This story has been contributed by Matthew Causey and Sophie Peel with Georgia Public Broadcasting.
Back in Macon at the Mulberry United Methodist Church, volunteers at one of the church's ministries serve a hot lunch to about 300 people every day during the work week.
Some of the food on the plates they serve comes from a garden around the block from the church.
“There’s always something to do. Every time I leave, I think we’ve got so much accomplished, but [then] I think we have so much to do,” said volunteer Jane Moore.
Moore moved to Macon several years ago to be closer to family and it was then that she joined the church.
One day, she decided to join the Mulberry Community Garden.
"I asked one day, 'Where the garden is that everybody talks about?' and she [Carolyn Barber] said ‘We’ll be working tomorrow. You should come,’ and so I came and I never left. It's really a fun thing to do," said Jane Moore.
Carolyn Barber got involved with the garden a short time after it opened in 2011.
“I got involved about two or three years after it started. A friend of mine was working and we were talking. I like to play in the dirt and dig and she asked me, ‘Why don’t you come down to the garden,’” recalled Barber.
“The garden has had a lot of caretakers and it's kind of a revolving thing. It's been here for eight years and right now Carolyn and I are the two who are kind of overseeing all the volunteers and keeping a count of what we're growing and making sure it's getting to the right places,” said Moore.
Walking through the garden, you can see the wide variety of produce that volunteers are working on growing.
"We grow most anything we think our clients at the Outreach Pantry would like to have. We have an apple tree, a pear tree...we grow beans and peas, squash, cucumbers, and strawberries and blackberries. And okra, a lot of okra," said Barber.
The duties among volunteers in the garden are divided out section by section.
"We always check our area. We’ve kind of divided up the garden row by row, so you can look to see if everything is growing nicely and if it needs to be weeded or watered. It really depends on the season," said Moore. "One of the neat things about this garden is that a lot of people have contributed to it. We’re always glad to get extra help. A couple of Boy Scouts from our church -- to get their Eagle Scout award -- did a project. One of them built our shed and people have donated through the years.”
If you’re interested in volunteering at the garden, you can call the church office at 478-745-8601.
The complete story from GPB Macon is below:
