By Alice Horner
It isn’t exactly “Green Acres,” but a rooftop farm at a New York City Baptist church is making the improbable a reality.
March 31 kicked off the second planting season for a neighborhood garden consisting of 52 soil-filled kiddie pools that serve as planting beds atop Metro Baptist Church in the part of midtown Manhattan known as Hell’s Kitchen.
Alan Sherouse
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Alan Sherouse, pastor at Metro for three years, says the idea was a dream for several years, but it became a reality at a neighborhood meeting in the fall of 2010. Demands on Metro’s food pantry had increased, and there rumors that a local vegetable market was closing. Taking action, Sherouse teamed up with MCCNY Charities and the Clinton Housing Development Corporation to get the project going.
Sherouse says collaboration is the core philosophy of Metro’s ministries. The farm was planned by a core group of experts including a retired city planner, an architect, a horticulturalist with urban farming expertise, grant writers, web developer and an educator with experience in children’s nutrition.
Last June 60 volunteers formed a bucket brigade to move seven tons of dirt up five flights of stairs to the church’s 4,000-square-foot rooftop.
In a packed city like New York, Sherouse said utilizing the square feet you have is the highest priority. “The challenge of ministry in New York City is finding and maximizing space,” he said. You won’t find any wasted space inside Metro, where the sanctuary is used 15 different ways each week. “You’d be hard-pressed to find a church whose identity is more tied to its location than ours,” he said.
Volunteers ranging in age from teenagers to retirees tend the garden. The produce is stocked in Metro’s food pantry, a service that receives 800 people per month, and then given to neighborhood residents.
While the idea of a farm on a roof in New York City might seem unusual, Sherouse says it’s the urban setting that needs green the most. “There’s a lot of things that the urban environment asks of you,” he said. “The city can be an isolating, fast-paced, individualistic place.”
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For Sherouse, who grew up in Florida and came to Metro from a youth minister job in Nashville, Tenn., the farm is a place to refocus his perspective. “I can feel a deep breath that happens on the rooftop farm,” he said. “Being up there, focusing on the growth, getting the view, working together, there’s nothing like it in the city.”
A new year brings fresh faces and programs to what is known as the Hell’s Kitchen Farm Project. This year’s focus is on youth involvement, said Tiffany Triplet Henkel, executive director of Rauschenbusch Metro Ministries. Metro’s after-school program and teen center are learning about sustainability and food justice, as well as having separate planting beds just for them.
“You can just see the energy,” Henkel said. “They’re excited about growing and learning. Just putting their hands in dirt is a new experience.”
Along with tangible fruits of their labor, the work pays off in community growth. “This catches people from all different backgrounds and interests,” Sherouse said. “Food is the ultimate common denominator.”
“This project is encouraging nutrition and sustainability, community building and engagement in the larger food justice movement,” he said. “I’ve seen it all along as another doorway to the work we do here.”
The same year that the farm project was launched, Metro’s Rauschenbusch Food Ministries changed their food pantry to Client Choice, a grocery-store style of food distribution. With that transition came a shift in mood, and a rare type of business emerged.
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“In the morale and spirit, I’ve seen a complete transformation,” Henkel said. “People have told us that with this system, they felt like they were listened to, they felt respected, and they have more dignity.”
Instead of just giving grocery bags to residents, they pick and choose the items they need. “We’re hearing people a lot more, there’s more interaction,” Henkel said. “Before, it was more one-sided.”
The paradigm shift not only brought more guests into the pantry, but more guests are turning into volunteers. “A lot of what we can celebrate is that we’ve almost done a complete 180 with our pantry,” Henkel said. “We’ve found ways where we can still be efficient but provide dignity to our guests.”
Sherouse sees the farm as a church entity, but its primary purpose is not to increase the Sunday-morning crowd. “We’re very content to throw our resources into something that is focused on serving the community, whether or not it increases our Sunday attendance,” Sherouse said. “If that happens organically, that’s a wonderful thing.”
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Yet with the rooftop farm literally being in the public eye for thousands of people in surrounding apartment, office and high-rise buildings, it is prominent advertising in itself.
“I think of it as public witness,” said Sherouse. “It has given people another point of entry to our church and community ministry and our understanding of the gospel.” Sherouse describes it as “public theology.”
Building on Metro’s success, Sherouse said he would like to see more urban farms in his neighborhood. “We think this is a replicable model,” he said. “In the grand scheme, we hope that Metro’s farm will be the initial site of many rooftop farms started by the Hell’s Kitchen Farm Project.”