photo by: Contributed

Annah Steele, center, takes a group selfie with the Growing Food Growing Health crew. Behind her, from left to right, are Nancy O'Connor, Ellen Hanrath, Anders Benson, Felix Mueller, garden assistant Perry, and Elinor Russo.

A crew of teen gardeners in Lawrence have just wrapped up a growing season full of hard work – a season their boss told them might be one of the most important they’ve ever had.

University of Kansas student Elinor Russo and Free State High School students Annah Steele, Felix Mueller, Anders Benson and Ellen Hanrath have been working at Growing Food Growing Health, a youth project that tends gardens at West Middle School and gives the produce to people in need in the community. And with recent disruptions to SNAP because of the federal government shutdown earlier this month, they and their boss, Nancy O’Connor, have talked a lot about the importance of their work.

“I can definitely tell,” Elinor said. “In the garden, Nancy especially has made that clear that what we’re doing is more important than ever. It definitely brings another kind of meaning to what we’re doing, knowing that we are doing what we can to help.”

The participants fill a variety of different roles, from the actual gardening to packaging the food to distributing it. In years past, their free market took place at Edgewood Homes, but it moved to the Ballard Center this year, and going forward the group will be helping the center stock its new food pantry.

It’s been hard to pinpoint how the demand is affected by what’s happened in Washington. Annah said she can’t really say – after all, all of the gardeners said they’ve seen consistently high need in the community throughout their time with the program. But she did say that the disruptions “definitely did not help at all.”

What is clear, Ellen said, is that many people in the community are hungry.

“I’ve helped package a lot of food that’s going into the pantry that just opened,” she said. “And I know that when our boss Nancy went and checked back, a lot of that food was going very quickly.”

“We had to work really hard to source new vegetables and stuff, to kind of stock that and keep that going, because it was clear that the food was being taken,” she continued. “There was obvious need there.”

Ellen said that the season usually ends in October for Growing Food Growing Health, but it was “extended multiple weeks because of the food crisis.” And, while the gardeners mentioned they plan to do what they can during the winter months – including by helping out at Jubilee Cafe – there’s only so much they can do at this time of year.

“There’s a certain point where, with the work that we do, you can’t really keep growing those vegetables in the winter.” Ellen said.

But O’Connor, for her part, is inspired by how much of a difference the gardeners have made this year. They’ve distributed over 4,500 pounds of produce – 3,139 pounds that they grew themselves, and the rest from donations they sourced from Pearl Clark Community Garden, K-State Master Gardeners, and other local producers.

“They work through the heat of the summer, get drenched in the rain, always come to the garden work on time, and do this all with big open hearts – creating change in our community with a commitment way bigger than themselves,” O’Connor said.

The Journal-World asked the gardeners for their thoughts on the role they’ve played at an important time. Here’s what they had to say.

Annah Steele, and seeing what the world is really like

“There’s never a shortage of people that need produce,” Annah says. In her four years of working at Growing Food Growing Health, the Free State High senior has hardly ever seen a market that wasn’t busy.

It was a little slower at the beginning of this year, she said, because people didn’t immediately realize they’d moved to the Ballard Center. But soon enough, “especially by the end of the year, we had so many people coming.”

“I’ve seen so many different people come to market, and that’s one thing I love about it, is that it’s just such a diverse group of people that we see,” she said.

And they all have their own unique situations and needs. They may be going without things that some of us take for granted.

“There are some people that we’ve seen that only take the raw vegetables that they can just eat right away, because they have nowhere to cook,” Annah said. “I’ve seen that, and then I’ve seen people that, they do have a house, and they do have a kitchen and all the things, but they just need that extra support with the groceries.”

“There’s so many different people that come here, and it is really eye-opening.”

If you’re not struggling, she said, it’s often hard to open your eyes to people who are.

“I think it’s really easy to just assume that other people don’t struggle with things if you don’t struggle with them,” she said. “Kind of like, ‘oh, I have plenty of groceries, I have plenty of food, of course other people do too, and if they don’t, it’s their fault.’

“I think a lot of people – not intentionally – but I think they can have that mindset, just because they haven’t seen it.”

The best way to open your eyes, Annah said, is to “really just get out there and see what the world is actually like.”

“Because the world is a hard place for so many people,” she said, “and it’s not their fault,”

Felix Mueller, and helping others instead of judging

When Felix, a senior at Free State, started working at Growing Food Growing Health three years ago, he was surprised at how many people would come to the markets.

“Like, I always thought that not a lot of people would come to the market, but I think every single market we’ve given away basically all of our produce.” he said. “It’s a pretty rare occasion that we don’t.”

Over the years, he said, he’s seen more people take more produce. “I feel like a lot of the people who come take more things over the years.”

But he’s also seen how they give back.

One frequent customer, he said, “always takes a lot of produce, but she’s also always very willing to help.” She’s actually helped the students in the garden, and Felix said he thinks “that’s really impressive.”

“I think it just shows her character, that even though she needs help she’s still willing to help others,” Felix said.

He feels that “there’s a lot of judgment towards people” these days, and that many people would be better off looking at themselves before they judge someone else: looking at how much they’re consuming versus how much they’re giving back.

“Just make sure you’re not taking more than you need, and think about when you are taking things that you’re leaving enough for other people,” is his advice. “That you’re just taking all that you need, and not taking too much.”

Elinor Russo, and making connections

For Elinor, Growing Food Growing Health isn’t just a high school project. It’s something that’s followed her even after graduation.

Elinor, currently a freshman at KU, still works there, just as she’s done since she was 14 years old. She originally heard about it from a middle school teacher, who said it was a great opportunity. But “I think the main thing that drew me to it was because it was in my neighborhood … I could just walk there,” Elinor said.

She’s learned a lot since then about just how much need there is in her own backyard. She’s talked to the people in Lawrence who rely on their produce and learned about their hardships.

“I think over the years the need has definitely always been there,” Elinor said. “I’ve just become more perceptive of it as I’ve gotten to know these people and people open up to us about their situations.”

Some customers would come by every week, and others would just show up one time, she said. But whoever showed up, Elinor said it was about more than just providing them with food.

“It’s always been really, I guess, formative for me to see how much what we do can help people, not just by giving them food but also by having connections with them and showing them that we care,” she said.

The market is no-questions-asked, so she doesn’t always know everything the customers are going through. She’s noticed one thing they have in common, though:

“The kind of people you meet there, they’re just very, very, incredibly kind,” she said. “And some of them, we don’t know what they’re going through. I mean, some people are just week to week, they’re really just trying to make ends meet, and they don’t know when they’ll get food. It definitely is a situation that could happen to anybody, and I’ve seen that.”

What she likes about Growing Food Growing Health is that it also grows bonds among people. It’s a big part of her and her friends’ lives, just as it is for the people they serve.

“This project is really important to people that receive the food. But it’s also equally important to us who do the work,” she said. “Because that aspect of connecting with those people makes it very fulfilling, and it definitely brings an extra layer to what we’re doing.”

Anders Benson, and things to look forward to

One thing that Anders likes best about the workday at Growing Food Growing Health comes at the very end.

“At the end of every workday we make a circle and say what we liked best and what we are looking forward to next time, and this is one of my favorite parts of the workday,” said Anders, a senior at Free State. “You get to hear all the gardeners’ perspectives on their day, and we get to reflect on all of the amazing work we did that day.”

Anders has done a lot of community service work before as part of his National Honor Society requirements, he said, and he joined Growing Food Growing Health because his brother had worked there and had really enjoyed it. This has been his first year, and it’s been extra rewarding work, he said, “because I got to see so many grateful people smiling and got to serve them our fresh produce.”

It’s taught him about “how big of an impact a small nonprofit can make on a community,” he said. And it’s made him even more sure that “helping people is a really good way to stay happy and is a great way to spend your time.”

“It taught me that community and relationships are everything,” Anders said.

Ellen Hanrath, and giving what you’d want to receive

Ellen, a junior at Free State, is also in her first year at Growing Food Growing Health, and she first heard about the garden from Annah. “They needed more people, and it sounded really interesting, so I applied,” she said. She’d just been on a summer service trip to Chicago that was focused on environmental justice, “so that kind of was in the back of my mind the whole time.”

Like the others when they started working, she quickly saw the need in the community – but also the love and gratitude of the people they served.

“All the customers are very grateful, and they express that, and it’s clear that the need is there and that they really appreciate the work that’s being done,” she said. “They’re just the sweetest and the kindest, and even if they can’t give back with maybe money, they always spread the word, or they give much thanks. It’s really cool to see.”

Some of the people were clients of the Ballard Center already; others came there specifically for the produce. “A lot of people drive a long way to get there,” Ellen said.

While Ellen got to do a little bit of everything during the last gardening season, she says the experience of packaging food has given her a valuable perspective on people’s needs – that staple foods alone aren’t enough, and that little touches can make a big difference for their customers.

“Sure, all the big crops are really important. Like, people really need those potatoes and those onions,” Ellen said. “But one thing we make sure to do – the other day, we were thinking of the Thanksgiving season, and we were packaging a bunch of different herbs and having recipes there in that space.”

It’s hard to quantify the effects of fresh herbs or a recipe when you’re measuring pounds of food grown and distributed, she said, “but it’s really important for customers to see that they’re not just getting the crops, but they’re also getting those recipes and they’re getting those little, those nice touches that make it a far more enjoyable experience.”

And, above all, there’s a kind of golden rule that the gardeners at Growing Food Growing Health follow:

“We don’t give anything that we wouldn’t be happy to receive,” Ellen said. “And we just make sure that the love is very apparent in the vegetables and the things that we stock.”