“Increase regional health outcomes and provide dynamic wellness programming to a region with some of the worst health outcomes in North Carolina.”
Robeson County ranking as 97th and Scotland ranking as the 98th out of the 100 healthiest NC counties in the 2014 Robert Wood Johnson County Health Assessments. If you consider where these old Field Camp Prisons were built, they were often built in a watershed as this provided access to water and cheap land. The site’s surrounding watershed of the scenic Lumber River that has been compromised from years of neglect and will be restored.
Specifically, the site will be used to demonstrate how native plants and other green approaches can provide land remediation and protect water sources from negative agricultural impacts. Additionally, sustainable niche farming technologies will be used to radically reclaim dilapidated public buildings in the service of social justice. We will provide environmental education, using the site to demonstrate the uniqueness of the surrounding ‘Sand Hills’ environment. Ongoing positive health outcomes will result from the paradigm shift away from processed foods toward fresh, locally grown produce; exercise that farming requires will benefit the participants’ fitness.
Food crops produced at GrowingcChange.Org farm will be sold to local restaurants and CSAs; the business enterprise aspect of the GrowingcChange.Org farm will allow the program to self-sustain, once it is established. GrowingChange.Org’s