As we close out the 2025 growing season here in the mountains of Eastern Kentucky, I keep thinking about hands.
Old hands, steady as a metronome after fifty summers of hoeing rows. New hands, still learning the weight of a good tomato and the feel of rain coming in the air. Some of our members are veterans at this, the kind who can read soil by sight and prayer. Some came in brand new, brave enough to try a first garden and see what happens.
Then something very Appalachian happened. They met in the middle. The elders and the newbies just.. worked. Stories were traded next to seed packets, laughs carried across the rows and a common love tied us up like twine. Generations making a perfect circle, passing the bucket, passing the know how, passing the heart.
We kept that circle strong at our Red Bird Mission Grow Appalachia meetings each month. Smiles, cackles, and the kind of learning you can taste. Guest speakers rolled through with recipes and wisdom. Folks went home with tools that actually made the work lighter. And every single time, the gratitude in that room could’ve lit the room without a switch.
Fridays turned into a standing date. The Farmers Market was the place to be and the absolute highlight of the week. It gave our gardeners a whole new kind of backbone. People ask them, “Did you grow this?” And with their head held high they answered, “yes.” That pride is medicine.
Bags emptied into the hands of neighbors, kids, and elders who needed good food on their tables.
Our community garden stayed a small haven through it all. Hopes and dreams sown into the earth with love and grit. If somebody’s beans needed tied, somebody showed up. If somebody’s back was tight, another person finished that row. We tended each other’s plots like family, because that’s what this place makes of people.
As the season winds down, I don’t see an ending. I see roots set deeper, hopes braided together, skills that won’t wash away with the frost. We grew food, yes. We also grew confidence. We grew neighbors into friends. We grew a wider table. That’s the quiet miracle of Grow Appalachia here at Red Bird Mission.
Plant a seed, feed a family, strengthen a holler, repeat. Berea College lit this spark years ago, and it keeps catching. Every jar given, every tool shared, every lesson taught, every dollar spent at a local table says the same thing.. we belong to each other.