Tag: Sister Kathy

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Local Women Grow the Market

CFA Admin

By Sister Kathy Curtis

Becky and Jimmy loving the market“We always had a garden.”

According to two women from Prestonsburg, Kentucky, that was one of the benefits of growing up in the mountains of eastern Kentucky. Becky DeRossett and Bonnie Hale are board members of Appalachian Roots Inc., a local non-profit dedicated to “making healthy foods available to communities throughout Eastern Kentucky.” During a recent interview they shared why they are involved in the local foods movement through their volunteer work with Appalachian Roots’ Friends of the Floyd County Farmers’ Market group.

DeRossett can trace her Appalachian roots back to the 1700’s. She says mountain people were always self-reliant and put great value on the land. Growing up, her family had a garden, a cow, and chickens. They also owned a small country grocery that had “brought-on food”. She remembers as a child getting three eggs from the chicken coop and taking them into the store to trade for a candy bar. The problem now, she believes, is that people have abandoned that self-sufficient way of life and chase after more and more “brought-on” things.

Hale, whose family left eastern Kentucky when she was five for better opportunities in Estill County, including a collegeBecky with Brenda drawing winner education, returned to the mountains with her husband Durward to raise their family. “We traveled a lot when our kids were growing up so they could have different experiences,” Hale says. Although her adult children both live outside of Kentucky, Hale makes sure that her grandsons know about their Kentucky heritage. She wants them to know “the world is big. It’s a great big wonderful place. But what we have here is a great big wonderful place too.”

Both Hale and DeRossett say their work in the local foods movement is built on their sense of place. “We need to quit looking elsewhere for our help and realize what we have already,” says DeRossett.  As Friends of the Market, they help run Double Dollars, a program that helps food stamp and WIC families by doubling the amount of fresh food they can buy with their benefits. The majority of funding for Double Dollars Bonnie with reusable bag winnercomes from donations from the community itself.

As board members of Appalachian Roots, both women are concerned about the health, wellness, and economic challenges of our region. To address the extremely high incidence of obesity, diabetes, and heart disease in eastern Kentucky, they believe a viable food system is crucial. Research has proven fresh whole food available at farmers’ markets and in home gardens provides proper nutrition, which can help diminish these health problems. Plus, food that is grown and sold locally retains its nutritional value but shipping costs are not an issue since the food is being shipped less than 100 miles in most instances. Recently Hale found onions in a local store that were grown in Peru. “What, we don’t grow onions in Kentucky?” she asks.

DeRossett and Hale agree that eastern Kentucky needs to be competitive if they want to keep young people in the region. “If my grandsons wanted to move here,” Hale says, “they should have the same opportunities in Kentucky as in Seattle: access to fresh food, jobs in chosen field of interest and better infrastructure for technology.” For her, working on food access issues is a start. They are also dedicated to exploring agriculture – food production, processing and marketing – as an economic development strategy. DeRossett asks, “Wouldn’t it be exciting to have a small scale food hub here in Floyd County?”

DeRossett and Hale both look forward to the Floyd County Farmers’ Market opening day. “It’s a social outlet for us,” they explain. They have found a fun and flavorful way to help grow the market too; they plan on applying for a sampling permit so they can offer samples of vendor’s goods to customers once a month.

These women show that even non-farmers can help grow a local food system. And have fun doing it.

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Kentucky’s Other Delicious Bourbon

CFA Admin

by Sister Kathy Curtis

This piece was also published in the Floyd County Times.

16204332142_7162bd2533_mJoyce Pinson of Friends Drift Inn Farm in Pike County invited me to Fort Cluck, the poultry component of the farm business, to meet her Kentucky Bourbon Red turkeys. Joyce and her husband Charlie also raise heritage breed chickens and ducks at Fort Cluck. The chickens and ducks are being raised for eggs and meat; however, the Kentucky Bourbon Reds are being raised to bring attention to the endangered breed.

Kentucky Bourbon Reds were originally bred in Bourbon County Kentucky and are on the American Livestock Breeds Conservancy’s Watch List. The Kentucky Bourbon Red is also included in Slow Food USA’s Ark of Taste, a catalog of heritage American foods in danger of extinction.

The Kentucky Bourbon Red began falling out of favor when breeders introduced large breasted turkeys to meet the consumer’s desire for more white meat. Today’s turkeys can get so large that they fall over and need help getting up when it rains so they don’t drown.

Pinson’s connection with turkeys goes back several generations. In Civil war times, her family had an inn in northern Kentucky right along Dixie Highway near Ridgewood, Kentucky. “In those days, you used to sell your turkeys in Lexington not Cincinnati which was closer”, Pinson said.

“People would herd hundreds of turkeys all the way to Lexington. On the way, they would stop at my family’s inn where they had a corral for the turkeys.”

I was really amazed at how beautiful and sociable the turkeys were when we walked around in the pen. The toms were showing off their brownish-red and white plumage and blue heads. Strutting around and gobbling, they put on quite a show. But one of the ironies of raising a heritage breed is that you raise them to be eaten.

According to Pinson, the Kentucky Bourbon Red has a rich flavor. They taste like what you feed them. “My babies have had black berries, cushaws, pumpkins, weeds and corn to eat and a lot of lovin’.”

Pinson paid $11 each for her turkey poults compared to around $1 for chickens. From April until Thanksgiving they don’t do anything but eat. “I paid $70 for my first Kentucky Bourbon Red two years ago, as a Thanksgiving entree. But when I think of all the time I have spent with my turkeys, feeding them and giving them a place to live, $70 doesn’t seem so high.”

Pinson isn’t raising her Bourbon Reds for the money but to better understand and bring attention to the breed. Seeing her with her flocks you can tell it is a labor of love.

“People say farming is hard work and no joy. I say if you’re not having joy in what you are doing, why are you doing it?”

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Double Dollars: One Family’s Experience

CFA Admin

by Sister Kathy Curtis

The summer of 2014 saw a great opportunity for low income residents of Floyd County, Kentucky when Appalachian Roots became a SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) agent for the Floyd County Farmers’ Market. Due to a grant from Community Farm Alliance and matching funds donated by individuals and local businesses, families who received SNAP benefits were able to leverage their benefits with the Double Dollars program to buy fresh food.

James and JenCUR1130Aprintnifer Lowe were the first Floyd County Farmers’ Market customers to take advantage of this opportunity. I talked to them recently while they were visiting the monastery to celebrate their 14th wedding anniversary.

The Lowes live in a housing authority development in Prestonsburg. James worked full time delivering pizzas until he was diagnosed with LUPUS. When able, he does odd jobs to supplement his disability check. Jennifer is scheduled to start training as a housekeeper with vocational rehab in the spring. Already farmers’ market customers, they were very excited to be able to use their SNAP card and get a bonus. “It helps a lot.”

Using SNAP at the market was easy James said. “I scanned my card for what I wanted to spend and they gave me double. When I would spend $10 they would give me $20.” His favorite items to buy were corn and white half-runner beans but he also liked getting tomatoes and zucchini bread.CUR1130Bprint

I asked them if they grew anything at home and was told they couldn’t have a garden in their complex. James said that working a garden was hard work and he didn’t know that he could do it anymore, which was why he really liked going to the farmers market.

While talking with them, I realized the need for more public education. James said one time he went to the market to get “fresh lettuce to make some kilt lettuce and onions but they didn’t have any”. I explained how the farmers market was a vendors market selling produce that was grown locally and that lettuce didn’t grow well in our area in August. That led into a very good conversation about what the phrase “locally grown” meant and how some large companies have a different idea when they say it in their advertising.

James and Jennifer only used their SNAP benefits at the Floyd County Farmers’ Market this year but more than 146 families redeemed WIC vouchers they received from the health department at the Market which were doubled also. These SNAP and WIC sales represented $3585 worth of income that went directly to our vendors from clients that would not normally buy from a farmers market. And in the words of James Lowe, “It helpCUR1130Cprints a lot.”

Programs like Double Dollars help low income families purchase healthier meal options which in turn provide for a healthier populace. In a region where diabetes and obesity are epidemic, fresh, whole food not only tastes better, it can be life saving.

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It Takes a Village

CFA Admin

by Sister Kathy Curtis

Sister Kathy Curtis here and I am honored and excited to have been chosen by Community Farm Alliance for this project. Through my work with the Grow Appalachia program at St. Vincent Mission, I have come to appreciate and value the stories that are an inseparable part of gardening in eastern KY. It was rare that I would visit someone’s home to check on their garden and not leave with an arm full of fresh veggies and an earful of wonderful stories.

SANYO DIGITAL CAMERAI love the name, Breaking Beans-The Appalachian Food Story Project, because it is really hard to break beans by yourself. It is a very boring chore so you always want someone else to help. With someone-anyone- helping you, fingers fly and so do tongues. While breaking beans, I have learned the “right way” to cook the beans we were working, as well as family stories, historical anecdotes, natural remedies and all sorts of mountain wisdom.

I recently asked a small group of people, “What comes to mind when you hear the term ‘Breaking Beans’?” Three responses were:

“Mamaw in her rocking chair with muscly fingers and a relaxed demeanor. Elvis playing in the background with sweat on her brow”. Candace Mullins-Grow Appalachia in Berea, Kentucky (don’t you love the image of “muscly fingers”?)

“Makes me remember those old lawn chairs that would burn your legs if they’d been in the sun…sitting out under the shade tree on those chairs and wondering if we’d ever finish. Once I promised I wouldn’t eat any beans ever again if I didn’t have to break them. I’d give anything for just one more of those afternoons with my Mawmaw and Pawpaw now.” -Roseann Kent, storyteller from Macon, GA.

And from Joyce Pinson’s Big Red Barn in Pike County, “Porch sitting sometimes so silent all you hear is the snap of the hulls and the dull thud when they go into a kettle, pieces at a time. The rattling of newspaper as yet another person joins the group, placing newspapers to catch the strings in their lap. Loud laughter and giggles, sharing the day’s events and the secret confidences that connect close family and friends. Different heaps….my father-in-law could string beans so elegantly the pile would be appear like fine threads-my pile looked like something the cat hacked up. Little youngin’s sitting on the porch floor counting beans, gathering up more piles of full pods to deliver to the “old” people. Bushel baskets and sore fingers. Sitting so long the porch light had to come on, and coffee sparked the energies. Sorting beans making sure no strings got passed into final production. Steamy hot kettles, one for fresh eating and the other a cauldron for the canning jars. Buckets of bean strings for the compost pile to enrich the soil so we can do it all again. Hot jars pinging. Green beans, fried tomatoes and a hunk of cornbread on the plate. Time well spent making memories”.

As you can see, fingers stringing and breaking beans must connect straight to that part of the brain that stores memories. And that is one of the things this project hopes to find-the deep, old mountain memory of agriculture in the mountains of eastern Kentucky.

I look forward to hearing these stories and as is true of any good story-sharing them. So come back to the blog often. And if you’ve got any, bring along some beans to work.