Hello Everyone!

My name is Cassie Williams and I am the new Site Coordinator for the Alderson Grow Appalachia site located in West Virginia. It has been such a wonderful experience thus far and I look forward to seeing Grow Appalachia blossom in our area.

In March we held a workshop at our local plant and material center where we demonstrated seed starting. Each participant planted seeds for their own use and seeds for Grow Appalachia. The plant and material center offered to house our seedlings in their magnificent heat controlled, water regulated greenhouse. Their generosity ensured us that our seedlings would be well maintained. Our intention behind planting the seeds for Grow Appalachia was to sell them at the local Farmers Market–and we have done just that!

May 14th (Mother’s Day) was the first day of our market. The weather was absolutely perfect and many of the community members were out and about with their mothers! At our booth we set up all of the starts and a few bags of the all organic fertilizer. During our time of being there we were approached by Martha (a very involved member of the community) who had just dug up bushels of her very own iris’s and gave them to our booth to give away for Mother’s Day! Her thoughtfulness and generosity added so much more to our booth. Needless to say, all of the mothers who came by our booth left with a smile on their face 🙂

Grow Appalachia is reaching more people each and every day. Programs such as this one enables more people to truly “give back”. Without the help and the generosity of our very own community members our project would not have been nearly as successful.

It is with gratitude and love that I write. Love for the Earth, love for the people, and love for the little community that I live in.

Happy Planting Everyone! 🙂