Texas College Converts Football Field Into Organic Farm

[marmar]

from Civil Eats:




Texas College Converts Football Field Into Organic Farm
March 29th, 2011

By Mark Winne


Highland Hills is one of those down-and-out communities that’s allowed a glimpse of prosperity but never gets to taste it. The Dallas skyline looms large across the hazy north Texas horizon and is linked to this poverty-plagued neighborhood by a seven-mile ribbon of light-rail steel. Ledbetter Avenue crosses the train line passing vacant buildings, empty parking lots, and a dizzying array of “For Sale” and “For Jesus” signs. Named for the renowned guitar picker Lead Belly who did time in these parts–both in and out of prison–the Avenue speaks little in the way of promise, but wails the blues of poverty loud and clear.

Like cockroaches in a post-nuclear winter, the only commercial survivors appear to be pawn shops, Dollar stores, and fast-food joints. One supermarket, a Minyard whose cinder-blocked and windowless façade is about as inviting as the entrance to Stalag 13, is the only retail food source in the surrounding miles of food desert. But a lifeline from an unlikely source has arrived via a group of innovative academics. Paul Quinn College, a historically black college that sits at the neighborhood’s eastern edge is committed to lifting the Highland Hills’ physical and economic health with a combination of food, farming, and servant leadership.

To drive by the campus is to, well, keep on driving. There are no signature ivy-clad buildings or tree-shaded quads, in fact the first roadside buildings you see are in various states of demolition. Student enrollment plunged from 600 to 200 and the school has experienced on-going accreditation problems. At first glance anyway, and like the adjoining neighborhood it wants to help, Paul Quinn appears to be hanging on by no more than a pea tendril.

But first glances are deceiving, and pea tendrils are stronger than they look. And when your back’s to the wall and nobody, even your own government, will help you, you fight like hell, you do the unexpected. You take risks. .............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://civileats.com/2011/03/29/texas-college-converts-football-field-to-organic-farm/

[Schema Thing]

1. kick

[KurtNYC]

2. the good stuff is buried further into the article

the press box could become a chicken coop, the bleachers could be greenhouse. Fighting Okra mascot.

And the twist ending involving Pepsi.

K&R

[catgirl]

3. K&R

[Gregorian]

4. Best use of a football field ever!

But in Texas? Come on Texas, you're failing us. Where are the monster trucks and fire breathing robots?