This past Sunday (feb 28, 2010) in the New York Times Magazine I read an article about Crop Mobs. If you’ve never heard of them (like me) I really suggest you take a couple of minutes to read through it. The article is about a volunteer movement in North Carolina which involves a group of people helping out a local farmer. They help farmers to do some of the basic and even not-so-basic tasks around the farms such as mulching, building greenhouses and even pulling rocks out of fields.
Reading the article reminded me of a lovely Sunday afternoon a couple of years ago when the members of my church came by to help Darren and I clean out our backyard. We were new home owners and after tilling the back yard discovered that there was still a lot of garbage and debris. The soil was filled with tiny rocks and pebbles, glass, plastic and some “unmentionables” that really were ruining my chances of nurturing the soil in hopes of a future garden. In that one afternoon the group of 15 people helped us to remove several bags of debris. The neighbors were amazed, and we were so grateful. We still look back on that time and see it as one of the best gifts we could have received. We easily could have paid someone to do all that work for us, but even one company wouldn’t have been able to do what our friends did out of love and friendship. It was great.
It’s good to know that this spirit of giving extends beyond the spiritual bonds of our individual communities and really does extend beyond our circles of life. I’ve never worked a farm, though I’ve always wanted to, and I imagine many of the volunteers for the Crop Mob feel the same way. Sometimes you just want to get outside and work up a nice old fashioned sweat, and do something good for the earth.
This got me to thinking, I should really do something like this for one of our meetup group events this summer. Maybe I don’t even need to wait until summer, perhaps there are opportunities to help someone in the New York/New Jersey area before then. Do you have any suggestions or connections? If so, let me know and I’ll look into it. I’d also love to hear if you’ve ever thought of doing something like this or if you’ve done something similar before. What was it like?
Comments