Jacob May made a wrong turn on the way to his grandmother’s house in Midland and passed by the Phoenix Community Farm.

He later researched the farm, and read about its mission. The nonprofit’s mission is to grow and share fresh produce while teaching community members to do the same.

“It resonated with me because I had experiences growing up where we weren’t always the most food secure,” May said. The family at times had to rely on food pantries and churches that were handing out canned and other nonperishable goods. They missed out on fresh produce.

“Being able to engage in this mission and learn about growing healthy food, and growing it for other people and using it for myself and for my family, has really been very powerful for me,” said May, who started as an intern and is now the farm and education manager.

Phoenix Community Farm was founded in 2018 by Beth DeVries, a University of Michigan alum who was working as a nurse practitioner in Midland. She realized that many people were not able to afford fresh fruits and vegetables. Knowing how much good health relies on good food, she decided to start a community garden.

Local deer feasted on the first harvest. The second and subsequent harvests have been enjoyed by her community. DeVries provided more than 50,000 pounds of food to the community since 2019. And preliminary numbers from this year’s harvest indicate that she’s more than doubled that to 105,000 pounds of food donated.

The farm also sells cut flowers and herbs with the proceeds helping to support the donation of vegetables.

Windover High School in Midland donated an acre of land where DeVries grows food and operates a pay-what-you-can farm stand. The farm teaches a community agriculture class at the high school, farm produce is utilized in the school’s culinary program, and many students volunteer at the farm.

The art of growing and preserving food

DeVries, who earned her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in nursing from U-M, grew up in rural McBain, Michigan. She learned from her parents and grandparents about growing and preserving food from the garden for winter.

“When I thought about hunger, I thought about it as kind of a distant problem,” she said.
“And I was made aware of the fact that one out of three people in Midland struggle to make difficult decisions between paying their bills and putting food on their table. And I was very surprised by that.

“I wanted to be able to teach that to my children, how to grow food and how to preserve food and also to teach the community. I think that growing food and preserving food is an art that is being lost in this time.”

DeVries shares a story about two students who were doing a garden cleanup and noticed a plant that was very tall and wide. Once they found out it was a Brussels sprouts plant, they asked the chef to change the vegetable for the school lunch so they could have it that day.

The farm also works with a nearby Head Start preschool and students walk to the farm for field trips.

“One of my favorite times is potato digging with those students because you never know what it is until you unearth it. Then there’s so much squealing and screaming and finding, ‘I got the big one, or this is the smallest one,'” DeVries said. “Those are the experiences that really motivate me … just seeing kids get excited about whole foods, foods that are healthy.”

What it takes to grow food

Before Evan White started interning at the farm, he wasn’t all that interested in vegetables. White, 22, was working at a coffee shop and attending Delta College in a dual agricultural technology program with Michigan State University, when he needed an internship in his field.

“I eat a lot more vegetables now that I work here. I’ll literally grab a radish from the ground, wipe it off and bite into it,” White said.

At Phoenix, he harvests, cultivates, plants and weeds. He has a greater appreciation for food production and the people who grow it.

The farm, he says, “is an opportunity for people to be able to see how the food has grown, what goes into producing all that. And it makes it a lot more satisfying for people to eat once they get to see all that.”

Drake Robinson, a 10th grader at Windover High School, knew about the farm from his grandmother, who is a volunteer.

“I learned how to care for food the safe way, harvest it correctly, just be safe with the tools that you’re using,” Robinson said. “Having access to fresh food is actually very good for us because obviously everyone might not be able to afford it.

He’s part of the community agriculture class and gets out into the garden every day. Some days the lessons focus on soil science, and others about harvesting vegetables and fruits. And, best of all, students learn “how fresh food tastes straight out of the ground.”

May said the course is more than just gardening. The high school students are learning about wider societal issues including people not knowing how to eat well and how small-scale farming can be beneficial to the climate and environment. He hopes that by the end of the coursework, the students will have an understanding of how a farm works and “how in the future they might be able to help bolster the food system.”

How to share 50 varieties of produce

Besides two nursing degrees, DeVries took home a great appreciation for collaboration from U-M. Community health taught her how to work with people from different backgrounds “and that has been a huge benefit.”

As a small nonprofit, connecting with other organizations and sharing resources makes a big difference. Instead of distributing the farm’s produce herself, she looked around at other options in Midland and found several groups that were already collecting and distributing food, and found ways to partner with them.

The farm grows more than 50 different varieties of produce including fruits, vegetables and flowers. It’s a wide variety for educational purposes and also to ensure there’s a good variety at the farm stand and distributed to the community. That avoids the problem of a food bank receiving a load of cabbages and nothing else.

Phoenix Community Farm sticks to growing the food and prepping it for donation. Some of the food goes to the farm’s pay-as-you-go food stand where people can always access fresh produce. If they cannot afford food, they can take what they need. If they can afford it, they are able to donate to support the farm’s mission and their neighbors.

In addition, Hidden Harvest, a Saginaw-based food rescue and distribution program, distributes Phoenix produce to 30 nonprofits in Midland County and also to Bay City and Saginaw programs. Regrow Together, a project of United Way of Midland County, also takes some produce to turn into full meals by the Windover High School culinary students that are then distributed to people who don’t qualify for other programs, but are income-constrained.

DeVries said that a large percentage of students at Windover qualify for free or reduced lunches so the entire school gets free breakfast and lunch.

“Some of the students are working out here on the farm through our community agriculture class or working in the culinary arts program and helping to make these meals, which will go to families who need them,” she said. “And it’s really empowering for them to know that they had a part in helping other people in the community.”