From Tending Grandma’s Garden to Starting a Food Revolution

Rev. Dorothy S. Boulware, Word in Black

In Baltimore’s Govans neighborhood, what started as a simple vegetable garden beside Pleasant Hope Baptist Church has grown into a nationwide movement of more than 230 congregations fighting food insecurity through self-sufficiency. And at the center of this transformation stands Rev. Dr. Heber Brown III, a third-generation preacher who’s reinventing how Black churches address hunger in their communities.

“If we embrace and renew our ability to feed ourselves, it will have an outreaching effect in so many other areas of our industry,” Brown says.

He started the Black Church Food Security Network (BCFSN) in 2015 with a revolutionary premise: rather than merely distributing food, churches can help their communities grow it.  His vision extends beyond immediate hunger relief to rebuilding lost connections between people and land.

The network “co-creates Black food ecosystems anchored by Black churches working in partnership with Black farmers and other organizations,” tackling a crisis that disproportionately affects Black Americans.

The seeds of this movement were planted through a personal connection. Maxine Nicholas, a grandmother in Brown’s congregation, reminded him of his own childhood experiences gardening with his grandmother Geraldine. This remembrance sparked the initial church garden project, which quickly evolved beyond simply growing vegetables.

Check out the original article on Word in Black to learn more about the network.

More Breaking News.