Austell got a little greener on Saturday, March 23 with the planting of a food forest at South Cobb Recreation Center.
The event also doubled as the Roots of Resilience Program kickoff, which is being facilitated through RCE Greater Atlanta — a functional network of United Nations University that seeks to advance the sustainable development goals throughout Metro Atlanta.
Bethany Mashini, executive director of the nonprofit My Green Earth, which aims to advance and empower sustainable lifestyles throughout Cobb, spent time living in Boston. After she returned to Georgia, she realized there were many measures that could be taken to live more sustainably.
“[Sustainable living] is not the ethos yet, but it will be over time,” Mashini said, adding that the sustainability community in Atlanta feels tight-knit because it’s not as widespread yet as it could be.
Dajawn Williams, a sustainability specialist at Kennesaw State University, agreed with Mashini, adding that the energy is shifting.
“You can feel the momentum and the “want” and passion from our community to make this a new lifestyle,” Williams said. “It’s a slow progress, but it’s definitely progressing toward that point.”
Part of the reason for choosing this project in Austell, located in South Cobb, is that the area historically has been considered a food desert — areas without reliable access to fresh, healthy food. These areas typically don’t have access to good transportation to get to fresh food in a convenient manner, either.
That’s why partnering with the Austell Community Task Force, which runs the existing Riverside Community Garden on the property, made so much sense.
Williams also said he actually had no experience at all with food forests prior to joining the team at KSU about seven months ago.
“I didn’t know anything about food forests, didn’t know that this was an idea or concept that people were putting out into communities,” Williams said.
Through some volunteering with Unearthing Farm, which has a pay-what-you-can system, he found the numerous benefits that community gardens and food forests offer and adopted the passion as his own.
“Seeing how people reacted to be able to come to a refrigerator and be able to get fruit and vegetables with the two dollars they had in their pocket that can now feed their families,” said Williams, “that was my first instance of being like ‘wow, there are a lot of things we can do in this city.’”
He soon became involved with food programs to assist farmers at KSU’s field station on their own one-acre food forest. Through these experiences, he’s seen the power of food gardens and forests firsthand.
“The natural world was providing our food before grocery stores were, so if we could provide a place where people who don’t have the finances to go to those grocery stories but can walk to a building where there is a mini food forest,” Williams said. “I think that means more than anything.”
The garden and food forest will also serve as a way for people to learn the craft of growing their own food and share that with their friends and families so the knowledge will become generational, Williams added.
Mashini agreed, saying she’s excited for the community to connect with the soil and feel a greater sense of empowerment by being able to self-produce the food they eat.
“The long-term goal here is not about the event; it’s about making sure the community knows this is one of a growing number of spaces where they can go and feel welcome and participate, learn, meet new people, and be a part of the Austell community,” Mashini said.
Future events will include planting shade trees to reduce urban heat island effects, along with helping maintain and plant new community gardens around Cobb.
Editor’s note: Mark Lannaman served in a network co-coordinator capacity for the RCE Greater Atlanta from August 2022 to August 2023.
So what is a food forest?