Congregations tend soil and soul with gardens

Morris G. Henderson wasn’t sure what do with a vacant block of land behind his 31st Street Baptist Church in Richmond, Virginia. The church had purchased the plots but didn’t have the funding for the family life center that they had planned to build.

Then he had a vision. “Why not build a garden and people can learn to be self-sufficient and we can grow food?”

With an 80-year-old church member heading the project, the congregation planted its first garden in 2008: watermelons, tomatoes, okra, squash, strawberries and blueberries.