Farm-to-Table Soup Kitchen: Capuchin Earthworks Farm in Detroit

The Capuchin Soup Kitchen Earthworks Urban Farm is on a mission to build a just, beautiful food system through education, inspiration, and community development on the east side of Detroit. Learn more: https://detroitcatholic.com/news/detr... Support: https://www.cskdetroit.org/earthworks Connect with Detroit Catholic! https://www.detroitcatholic.com YouTube:    / archdioceseofdetroit   Facebook:   / detroitcatholic​   Instagram:   / detroitcatholic   Twitter:   / detroitcatholic​   |Transcript| Brother Jerry Johnson: I'm Brother Jerry Johnson. I'm the Ministry Director for the Capuchin Soup Kitchen. Welcome to our Earthworks Urban Farm Program at the Capuchin Soup Kitchen. We've been serving through our soup kitchens and other programs here since 1929. Lots of monasteries and friaries would always have a porter, to try, if somebody rings the doorbell, to try to help in some form. So, more than 20 years ago at this point, one of the friars, his name was Brother Rick, was working here at the soup kitchen. One time Brother Rick was making out a grocery list, and one of the young kids in the neighborhood asked him, "What gas station do you go to get your groceries?" So then, he started a gardening program here, and began involving a lot of folks in the community that wanted to join in, kids that wanted to join in. Jeffery Spicer: I'm Jeffery Spicer-Bay, and I'm a clothe and pantry worker here at Capuchin Soup Kitchen. I had no idea that the Capuchin actually existed the way they do, and that the hand that they have in the community was so strong. But once I seen all the people here, I wanted to know more. So, I started frequently coming here. As I came, I learned they had many programs, and the programs were all the things that I was looking for, for my little neighborhood. And to find out that there was already a whole organization doing it, it made me want to do more. Patrick Crouch: So, our plants generally start the season in late February in our heated greenhouse, and depending on what they are, then they'll go into one of our hoop houses, which is an unheated structure, to grow for the kitchen, or they'll go down to one of our sites behind Gleaners Food Bank and get grown to maturity for harvest. So, we harvest at least twice a week for the kitchen. Everything gets washed, and weighed and recorded, so that we have an idea of how everything's doing in terms of our amounts each year. And then it goes into the kitchen where they're able to use it. Alison Costello: We're just really fortunate that the quality of the produce is just phenomenal looking. I love to show people--just open up the bins after the harvest over the weekend. On Monday, I'm like, "Look at this. Look at this lettuce! It's just amazing." All about hospitality. It's about building community, that whole breaking bread, sitting together is extremely important and food does that, you know? Brother Jerry Johnson: One of the things I like the most about our Earthworks Program is it really teaches the importance of relationships that we have. First of all, relationship with God, and then relationships with one another, with our brothers and sisters in the community. But also our relationship with the environment, the world around us. This is something that Saint Francis had stressed in his life, and the church and even scripturally has always stressed the importance of these relationships. Jeffery Spicer: I'm not just an employee here, I'm a member of the community. So, as they reach out to the community, community reaches back out to it. To me, the Capuchin Soup Kitchen means community itself, because that's exactly what it stands for. Father Solanus Casey, St. Francis himself, all of those men were about community, Brother Jerry Johnson: St. Francis had his famous poem that he talked about: the Canticle of Creatures, where he spoke of brother sun, sister moon, brother fire, sister water. So, this language of relationship and family was very important to him, and it extended to people, to the environment and then especially with God. Jeffery Spicer: There's a feeling about this place when you walk in here. You see smiling faces on people that normally you just wouldn't see.