Velvet Welch is an incredible force for empowering youth and expanding food access in the West End of Louisville, KY. Velvet’s path to becoming an urban farmer began in 2020. Motivated by the supply chain shortages during the beginning of the covid-19 pandemic, Velvet decided to focus on food sovereignty by gardening in her own backyard. Louisville’s historically Black West End also faces multiple challenges rooted in systemic racism, including the continued impacts of historic redlining and ongoing food apartheid (only two grocery stores exist in the West End).  

In 2023, Velvet established the Sacred Earth Community Garden, and this summer Velvet hired Grow Appalachia’s Social Enterprise to facilitate the installation of a quonset high tunnel kit they purchased with funding from Metro United Way. Through our Urban High Tunnel Initiative, we were able to provide a small grant toward this project to reduce some of her costs. Her students and many community partners helped with the high tunnel installation. Many hands made light work, and we were so grateful to lend a hand toward this project. This tunnel is a huge asset to the program, allowing Velvet and her students to extend their growing season and start planting earlier in the spring next year. Velvet plans to sow cover crops in the high tunnel later this fall. 

Velvet’s journey to found the Sacred Earth Community Garden began with her involvement in the Shawnee Neighborhood Anti-Violence Coalition. Louisville’s former Mayor Fischer’s Blight to Plenty program aimed to turn every blighted property into a green space. A survey in the community found that neighbors were concerned with the lack of jobs, especially for youth, and a lack of access to fresh food. Velvet believed she could address both of these concerns and achieve the goals of the Blight to Plenty Program through an innovative gardening program. 

In 2023, Velvet purchased a blighted property from her brother, formed Sacred Earth Community Garden as a 501(c)3, and received initial seed money from the Louisville Metro Office of Safe and Healthy Neighborhoods through her work with the Shawnee Anti-Violence Coalition and the Blight to Plenty Program. This funding paid for materials to establish the garden and offer paid positions for youth in the neighborhood to work there during its first year. 

This year marks the second year of Sacred Earth Community Garden’s youth programming. Youth are hired for 30 hours per week for three 6-week periods during the year: the spring program runs from March through May, the summer program runs from mid-June through the end of July (she worked with 30 students this summer!), and the fall program runs from early September through the end of October. During the summer months, Velvet partners with the Summer Works program through Youth Build to pay the youth employees (aged 16-24) $15 per hour to work at the garden and learn a wide variety of skills. Older students are encouraged to take on mentorship and management roles in the garden. This fall, she has enrolled 18 students. Velvet has partnered with Sowing the Seeds of Freedom during the fall program to offer mental health and wellness programming to the students.

Each student is responsible for stewarding one raised bed in the garden, and they are empowered to choose what to plant and how to maintain their garden. I was thoroughly impressed by the productivity and beauty of these garden beds in the middle of such a dry and hot summer. 

The impact of this program is multi-faceted. The youth employed through this program enjoy a safe place to socialize with each other, build relationships and friendships, and learn about growing food. Velvet has noticed that they stay present and off their devices while in the garden. She also partners with a wide variety of organizations throughout the community, including Pineal, which installed a trading station in front of the garden to offer free, fresh food to neighbors. These partnerships deepen her work and also allow her to offer a variety of educational opportunities to the students. 

Velvet is now piloting a new program working with young urban gardeners (“YUGs”) to install “yardens” (gardens in front and backyards) in the West End. Some of her students have demonstrated interest in starting a garden in their own backyards or are already growing food at their homes. Velvet hopes to expand this interest into a program where her students are transforming other blighted areas throughout the neighborhood into green spaces and gardens, expanding the vision of Mayor Fischer’s Blight to Plenty program. 

Velvet continues to apply for funding opportunities and needs financial support to continue her work and fund the following areas: utilities and building maintenance, staff time to support her work (currently Velvet does not get paid for this work!), a truck to allow the YUGs to transport materials around Louisville to install gardens, wages for the youth workers during the spring, summer, and fall programs, and materials to keep the garden going (seeds, soil amendments, etc.). 

~ Steph Hamborsky, Program Support Specialist

Please consider donating to support this work and expand the programming of the Sacred Earth Community Garden.