Notes from the Field: Gardening and Activism during COVID-19

The following blog post was written by Lauren Willette, AFTA’s Summer 2020 intern, reflecting on her summer project: Coronavirus Pandemic Response: Gardening and Food Production Resourcefulness in Arkansas.

As the pandemic began to become more and more serious through February and early March of 2020, I began to think about growing a garden. I’d already been thinking of it, but it felt more urgent this year than in years past. I didn’t know how long I’d need to be mostly at home, but I knew it’d be awhile before I’d be going out as often I had been previously. It seemed like a good year to grow more vegetables than I’d tried to grow in previous years. As I began buying seeds, my social media feed told me that I wasn’t alone in making these plans. And, when I started trying to buy heirloom seeds from companies online, I found many of the vegetables I’d wanted to grow weren’t available. I found some seeds at my local organic grocery store, and my elderly grandfather also gave me some of his extra seedlings as the weather continued to warm.

I was finishing a semester of PhD coursework for the Heritage Studies Ph.D. I am currently pursuing. I knew I needed to put together an internship as part of the requirements for this program, so I began considering how I could blend the work of gardening, a folkway that is often passed from generation to generation or neighbor to neighbor, with the work of ethnography during a pandemic.

I first began by connecting with Arkansas Folk and Traditional Arts to find out if they would accept a special collection of interviews about the ways that people in Arkansas were gardening in response to the pandemic. I then let the project grow as naturally as possible. As I continued to consider my project, I realized I wanted to develop a special collection that reflects more than only gardening practices; I wanted to try to develop a special collection that would reflect the many ways that food was being considered by people across the state, especially with consideration to food donations and gardening.

I spoke with people living in many different regions of the state, completing fourteen interviews in total. I started by creating an online survey and speaking with some of my friends and acquaintances about food donations and gardening. I was able to speak with educators, small business owners, retired folks, students, and more.

I spoke with a young woman named Elizabeth Taylor of Batesville, Arkansas who grew a garden of mostly tomatoes in her back yard along with many flowers. She shares about learning to slow down and the process of considering which spots are most favorable for vegetable growing through the act of observation. Many of the people I interviewed spoke about how important being forced to slow down was during the beginning of the pandemic.

I spoke with one vegetable farmer Kathy Algood, whose farmer’s market business suffered greatly due to the pandemic, but she was able to invite a few patrons to pick up their orders from her farm directly. Now she’s working toward growing her flower business rather than focusing on growing foods.

I also connected with some people who are leading and working with groups that are feeding many people through non-profits and food pantries. I spoke with Evelyn Shackelford, director of the Delta Dreams Food Pantry, and another volunteer, Dorothy Kiyumbi, about their work in Marianna, Arkansas. Dorothy also helps with some community gardens and her husband grows a garden for their own family, too. On the other side of the state in Fayetteville a man named Nate Walls has started a food activism non-profit that feeds meals to those in need; it’s called Second Helping NWA. He uses this non-profit to connect with individual community members to form bonds across racial, political, and class lines which allows him to engage in important conversations with members of those communities. I also spoke with the director and founder of Zenenvirotech, Niki Evansingston, who shared the ways that the pandemic has affected her ability to provide some services with her non-profit. But she was still able to work with local farmers in Forrest City to connect them with the St. Francis County Food Pantry there, which helped to provide fresh produce to those in need.

Each of these interviews focuses on food ways and food activism; these actions are shown in many different ways, but each of them connects people with their friends, family, neighbors, and community members. Food not only meets our needs for survival but it also provides comfort and connection. Food brings people together, both literally and metaphorically; those doing this work all hint at this theme in some way or another, and they all use their interest in food and food ways to connect with others. I wasn’t only interested in uncovering what their work looks like but also a little about who they are as individuals.

Many of my interviews turned more candid as we continued to talk. Those interested can hear what Wendell Berry had to say to Rachel Reynolds, backyard gardener and community activist from Fox, Arkansas, as well as the ways Oliva Trimble, of Fayetteville, community activist and sign painter, finds the good amidst a devastating pandemic. Some of the interviews reflect upon the civil rights uprising that began in May and continued throughout the summer and the ways that movement was affecting their work. Although only fourteen interviews cannot tell us everything about these events or how people across the state were feeling, they do offer some insight into the ways the pandemic affected segments of Arkansans, and more importantly, it highlights the type of work that individuals across the state were and are still engaging in to help and connect with their neighbors.

— Lauren Willette, December 2020