EMILY WHANG / NEXTGENRADIO
What is the meaning of
home?
Zenobia Dowdy talks with Sanford, North Carolina, community leader Crystal McIver, who founded the Peace and Unity Community Garden in the neighborhood where she grew up. With this garden, McIver has provided her local community with much-needed resources, all at no cost. The garden has also helped bring neighbors closer together.
How a community activist is creating peace and unity through gardening in Sanford
How a community activist is creating peace and unity through gardening in Sanford
Click here for audio transcript
(Sounds of the crickets at the Peace and Unity Garden)
I would be remiss, if I didn’t tell you a little story about how this garden got started.
I am Crystal McIver and this street is called Washington Avenue. And so on Washington Avenue, at the top of the street, there was a store and people would hang out there. And, and oftentimes, it was drugs. And there was always fighting and, and fussing going on down here, right. Just violence, drugs being sold, gangs and those kinds of things. And that was when I was a kid.
With it being so close to where I was brought up, I just feel like it was God’s order, and it was something that had to be here. This was a vacant lot, nothing was going on here.
And so a community garden was just the one thing that I thought would bring the community together.
(Sounds of Alfreda Clegg hammering stakes into the ground)
So, the justice involved individuals that serve the garden are individuals who have, you know, committed a crime. And they have to do a community service to provide hours for the crime that they have committed.
And so many of the guys and ladies that I serve had a challenging upbringing.
The garden creates a sense of home for them because they’re able to give back to nature. They’re able to do something positive.
So there’s volunteer work that happens out here, there’s community service work, and then there is true gardening that happens out here from the community families.
I believe flowers bring people together, I just believe blooms are amazing. I think when you plant a seed on purpose in the ground and you’re harvesting and there’s food that you can eat, food always brings people together. And so the garden, has since 2012 produced all kinds of vegetables. And so I think the garden has just been able to be the melting pot for all things good in this community.
I mean, who doesn’t enjoy cucumbers, and tomatoes, you know. And the sounds that you hear here, the sounds of the crickets, and even sometimes the birds and the deer. I felt like that would happen if we took the time to create a beautiful spot here.
(Sounds of Alfreda Clegg pulling weeds from the tomato plot.)
The garden has provided a healthy way of living for the neighbors here. A mom who lives right there, in that home there said her grocery bill had been decreased, because of being able to get the garden vegetables as opposed to going to the grocery store. I think the garden has given us a place to to celebrate life and to be at peace.
Some days people are here relaxing, and I can just drive past and see people are working in the garden. And I just think, wow, how awesome to have been a part of just creating the idea.
It’s very difficult at times when I’m here for me to leave because it feels surreal. Like there was nothing here, and now you look around and there’s a peaceful place that you can sit down.
And it makes me feel at home because it was something that I, that I know was not here until I created it. And so it makes me feel really brave.
And in that, it makes me feel like I can do anything. And in that it makes me feel at home.
Crystal McIver, 48, grew up in Sanford, North Carolina, just a few blocks from a vacant lot she’d eventually transform into a community sanctuary.
She recalls a store at the top of Washington Avenue where people would hang out, and she remembers hearing stories about violence, drugs, and gang involvement there.
“A community garden was just the one thing that I thought would bring the community together,” she said. “I envisioned this garden for people really. I just thought, ‘how cool would it be to see people out here.’”
That vision became a reality in 2012, when McIver founded the Peace and Unity Community Garden, a one-acre lot near the city’s downtown.
“I’m a big fan of affirmations,” she said. “So I wanted to name it something that would reign over this community.”
Since then, people from all walks of life have worked year-round in the soothing and colorful garden, growing everything from okra, tomatoes, and corn every year.
On a recent morning, Alfreda Clegg, the garden mother, was pulling weeds and reinforcing the stakes around her tomato plants to keep the fruit off the ground.
Crystal McIver, founder of the Peace and Unity Garden in Sanford, N.C., stands in the garden at the end of Hudson Avenue on July 31, 2023. She secured the acre of land for the garden in 2012 and worked with the neighborhood to create a space that now provides fresh produce to the community where she grew up.
ZENOBIA DOWDY / NEXTGENRADIO
July was a hard month for the garden, and Clegg was not able to tend to it as much as she normally would. She’s back now, and plans to be at the garden every morning throughout August.
“You see, when you pull all these weeds out, you can see what your product is doing, what your vegetables are doing,” said Clegg, who is affectionately known as Ms. Alfreda in the community. “But once the weeds take over, the weed will choke the life out of your plant.”
The community takes full advantage of the one-acre garden in Sanford, N.C. Behind the yellow butterfly sculpture is okra, to the right of that is eggplant. Other produce in the garden includes: peppers, tomatoes, corn, and grapes, which are a fan favorite and gone almost as soon as they appear.
ZENOBIA DOWDY / NEXTGENRADIO
Before managing the garden, Clegg worked as a nurse at the local hospital but was not at a place of personal fulfillment. Working in the garden gave her a new love of life again. She retired from nursing and has since fully managed the garden.
McIver welcomes volunteers like Clegg to work the garden, which she considers a precious resource for the community. They come from all walks of life, including local organizations and the homeless community. Community members also volunteer their time, and residents of the local neighborhood also contribute heavily to its upkeep.
It makes me feel at home because it was something that I know was not here until I created it. And so it makes me feel really brave. And in that, it makes me feel like I can do anything.
“The neighbors started really fixing their yards up,” McIver said. “Before the garden, they didn’t know each other. And so you’ll see and you’ll hear them talking to each other, sharing vegetables with each other.”
She added: “I think the garden has just been able to be the melting pot for all things good in this community.”
In addition, McIver said the garden provides opportunities for people who have had a challenging upbringing and are required to complete community service.
“The justice-involved individuals that serve the garden are individuals who have committed a crime,” McIver said.
“The garden creates a sense of home for them because they now know that they’re giving back to the community where some of them created their crimes here.”
McIver says just driving past the garden and seeing people relax gives her a feeling of accomplishment. She wanted to provide families with the opportunity to have healthier food options and learn to cook good food, at no cost to the community.
Alfreda Clegg works in the tomato plot removing weeds. Clegg lives two houses away from the garden, and she and another neighbor perform a lot of the regular maintenance watering and tending to the garden. Though she often starts as early as 7 a.m., the heat drives her out of the garden by 10 a.m. in the summer.
ZENOBIA DOWDY / NEXTGENRADIO
A notice board sits at the entrance to the garden, so people can post community events and other notices. Alfreda Clegg begins work in the garden at sunrise and moves water around to various plants that need it.
ZENOBIA DOWDY / NEXTGENRADIO
Alfreda Clegg, garden mother and day-to-day operations manager, shows some cantaloupes sprouting. She says once they are ready for harvest, the plot will be filled with cantaloupes.
ZENOBIA DOWDY / NEXTGENRADIO
“I want people to know that vegetables really do grow here, and that they’re at no cost,” she said.
When McIver started the garden, it was just her and her family who helped bring this vision to life. She remembers putting lawnmowers in their trunks every weekend and doing the work themselves. It took a few years for the neighborhood to buy into it, and now she believes the community feels good about the garden being in their neighborhood.
“I can go to any door and ask for anything here. I feel like this is my home,” she said. “Pretty much it served its purpose.”