Growing Roots

Backyard Basics is a culinary event where Growing Roots leads a lunchtime cook-along with community partner Grundy County UT-Extension to talk culinary techniques, recipes, and cultural connections. Residents and fellow laborers are welcome to join for free food & fun giveaways.

Growing Roots was formed out of an in-house program (called “Healthy Roots”) at DuBose Conference Center. In the two years that we called this place home, we assisted in the development and expansion of the DuBose Garden. This served as the site of many of our hands-on workshops and acted as a powerful hub for conversations concerning food sovereignty and the importance of organic gardening on the South Cumberland Plateau.

Available at our headquarters is our free community seed bank. Seeds for this project were donated by Seed Savers Exchange and local community members. We believe this piece of infrastructure represents an important first step in increasing the accessibility of organic gardening practices on the Plateau. Stop by our office to take (or give!) free heirloom seeds to support your home garden.

In the summer of 2020, Growing Roots, under the moniker “Healthy Roots”, hosted a three-day, in-person retreat focused on whole health wellness practices at DuBose Conference Center. Despite the complications posed by the COVID-19 pandemic, this retreat was a resounding success. Featuring hands-on workshops underscoring whole health wellness techniques such as healthy eating on a budget, simple organic gardening practices, culinary instruction, and exercise such as hiking and yoga, “A Bounty of Good Health”, represented a powerful outreach opportunity for residents of Franklin, Grundy, and Marion counties. We look forward to hosting more of these invigorating and immersive workshops as we continue to grow, and hope to see you there!

In 2020 our team, under the “Healthy Roots” banner, joined up with the South Cumberland Summer Meal Program (SMP), a collaborative partnership between the University of the South, South Cumberland Community Fund, and the project’s community partners. SMP served meals to over 2000 local families affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. We served as a connection hub for service members that were operating different meal sites in Grundy County, and offered temporary food storage space as needed.

Growing Roots resources the “teaching gardens”, located behind the South Cumberland Learning and Development Center. This space is an essential tool in providing garden-based STEAM education to youth participants in the After School Initiative.