Needless to say, 2020 has been a rough one; Australian wild fires, COVD19, murder hornets, protests, riots, volcanic threats, a Saharan dust storm and more and more and more… We have been isolated, quarantined, and the world we lived in turned upside down in an instant. The chaos of it all has made the simplest of task, more complicated, more tedious, and much more time consuming. To be honest, even social media was too hard to scroll through, but then, aimlessly scrolling past the negativity, I found a gem. A first year Grow Appalachia participant broke the negativity with this post.

 

I love how gardening brings people together. I’ve always enjoyed how food in general

 brings folks together. A gathering of the people who mean the most to you is the heartbeat of your life, at least mine anyway. It’s something in life that always keeps me grounded.”

 

 

Reading the post, reminded me of the WHY. Why, amidst all this chaos and worry, do we still press on, distribute supplies, and educate our families. What we do in Grow Appalachia is more impactful than words or numbers can ever convey, the work we do is truly transforming.

 

Many times, we let those post scroll by, we get wrapped up in the day to day and the mundane. We do our jobs and execute our task, but sometimes we get lost in the why. My why, has certainly come to light over the last 90 days. From gathering virtually with families, seeing the gratitude on their faces when handing them a scuffle hoe or loading a bag of fertilizer, but the real treat is seeing those wonderful social media posts and sharing in the excitement as folks begin to harvest. That is my why, the why that I am most proud of.