10 - Food Justice & Growing Community with Cathy Cleary of Bountiful Cities

In this episode of the Wellness in Asheville Podcast, I'm joined by Cathy Cleary, a longtime Asheville changemaker in the food justice world. Through her work with Bountiful Cities, she's helped build community gardens, educational kitchens, and networks that nourish people and restore land.

We explore how food access, equity, and healing all intersect, and how growing your own food can be one of the most revolutionary things you do. Cathy shares insights from 15 years with Bountiful Cities, including their comprehensive FEAST program that teaches children cooking and gardening skills from seed to harvest.

Key Takeaways

• Food Sovereignty – Why choice and access to fresh produce is foundational to health
• FEAST Program Impact – 100% of parents report increased school enjoyment; children with food sensitivities expand their diets
• Community Gardens – Supporting neighborhood food access while empowering local management
• Generational Knowledge Gap – Only 10% of farmers are under 35; programs bridge this critical gap
• Local vs. Organic – Why supporting local farmers often trumps expensive certifications
• Mental Health Benefits – Garden-based education improves self-regulation and emotional wellness

Timestamps

00:00 – 02:00 | Introduction & Cathy's Journey to Food Justice
02:00 – 05:00 | Bountiful Cities Overview: FEAST, Community Gardens & Food Hub
05:00 – 09:00 | Food Sovereignty & Community Garden Network
09:00 – 13:00 | FEAST Program: Transforming Children's Relationship with Food
13:00 – 16:00 | Cooking Education & Creative Recipe Development
16:00 – 18:00 | Family Impact & Student Entrepreneurship Stories
18:00 – 22:00 | Societal Solutions: Aging Farmer Crisis & Knowledge Transfer
22:00 – 27:00 | Food Policy, Sustainable Agriculture & Consumer Choices
27:00 – 32:00 | Program Expansion: Middle & High School Vision
32:00 – 34:00 | Community Support Needs & Ways to Get Involved
34:00 – End | Rapid Fire: Favorite Foods, Spaces & Food Memories

Episode Links

• Bountiful Cities
• Asheville Buncombe Food Policy Council
• Pearson Food Hub
• Asheville City Schools Foundation
• FEAST Program Volunteer Opportunities
• Community Garden Network Resources

Additional Resources:

• Pearson Food Hub Volunteer Sign-up (Liability waiver required)
• City of Asheville Food Policy Action Plan
• Asheville Edibles Map - Interactive map of public edible plants

The Wellness in Asheville podcast is produced by Be Well Asheville, your local news source covering health + wellness news + events in Asheville. Get the latest at bewellasheville.com or follow @bewellasheville.

Transcript

Speaker: [00:00:00] Welcome to the Wellness in Asheville Podcast, where we shine a light on the people practices, and places that make this city one of the most inspiring wellness communities in the country. I'm your host, Travis Richardson, founder of Be Well Asheville, your local news source for health, wellness, and community events.

Speaker 6: Kathy Cleary is a longtime Asheville change maker in the food justice world. Through her work with bountiful cities, she's helped build community gardens, educational kitchens, and networks that nourish people and restore land.

Travis: In this episode we'll explore how food access, equity, and healing all intersect, and how growing your own food can be one of the most revolutionary things you do. Welcome to the show, Kathy. Thank you. It's great to be here. Well, I'm excited to have you on and we talked a [00:01:00] lot, uh, before the show about how we have a lot in common.

I, you know, myself have done a lot with gardening and we, we can, um, talk about that later, but I want to get right to you. We have a lot to talk about. So I'm curious what drew you to Justice? 

Cathy: Justice? Um, well, I think early on in my journey I realized that we don't all have access to the same food in our culture,

and that was pretty disturbing to me because I feel like food is foundational and I want all people to be able to get what they need to nourish their brains and their bodies. And so started getting connected with organizations and individuals who were thinking about the same sorts of things and wanting to increase food access.[00:02:00] 

Travis: How long have you been working with Bountiful Cities? 

Cathy: Well, I started volunteering for Bountiful Cities a long time ago, um, probably about 15 years ago now. And I started out as a board member and, uh, volunteered on the, on the board for a while, and then as I helped to. Get the Feast program started, switched over to volunteering primarily for that program, and then started working for the organization about five years ago.

Speaker 7: Nice. Yeah. And like you mentioned, I think you said most of the people that actually work, uh, in bountiful cities, like full time were volunteers first. 

Cathy: Yeah. Yeah. A lot of the folks that are, um, involved have contributed. It's a passion for, for most of us. 

Travis: So Bountiful cities is like [00:03:00] when I was doing my research, it's a really, it's an amazing project and there's a lot of facets to it.

Could you go over what does it do for the city of Asheville and and beyond? 

Cathy: Yeah, sure. So we do have a lot of programs. I mentioned feast before and that's our cooking and gardening education program in public schools. Um, again, I mentioned food access and. Feast teaches children comprehensive cooking and gardening education.

When they graduate from the feast program in fifth grade, they know how to start seeds. They know how to care for plants in a garden. They know how to harvest. They know how to. Prepare fresh fruits and vegetables and make them taste good to themselves. We really focus on like, what tastes good to you And, um, they even know how to save [00:04:00] seeds at the end of the season when, um, when it's important for us to, uh, be thinking about what we're gonna grow the next season.

So, uh, we feel like this. Is an incredibly valuable skill and we, we want children, especially to have these kinds of skill sets as they, as they, you know, think about what interests them in their lives and what path they might wanna take. Not just in terms of career paths, but just, uh, you know, in terms of like making choices about their health.

And so we just want, a lot of, A lot of folks are disconnected from food and agriculture these days, and we want children to, especially children who might not otherwise have the [00:05:00] opportunity to be exposed to this kind of education, we want them to have that access. And so that plays into food sovereignty because it's really all about choice.

We want. People to be able to choose based upon what they have been exposed to. And we want them to be able to choose things that they like to eat and they want, and we want those things, those options to be more open. Um, and have fruits and vegetables be part of those options because so many people don't have access to.

Fresh fruits and vegetables within their neighborhoods, um, and within their households. So, um, we extend that, uh, throughout all of our programs. We have our, uh, adult programs that are [00:06:00] through our Community Garden network. And, um, I can say more about that if you would like and, uh, and the community Garden Network.

Operates all over the city of Asheville and into Buncombe County. And we, uh, really try to give people, uh, tools, resources, education that they might need, uh, to learn about agriculture and to learn about cooking and to learn about, um, how to. Create their own neighborhood food access. Um, and these, these programs are supported by our Pearson Food Hub and our Pearson Food Hub, uh, is this amazing oasis in the center of the city that [00:07:00] grows out seedlings for all of our community gardens that we help to support.

Including our school gardens, um, and also gross food to support the feast program. Um, and, uh, and, and other programming that we do where we offer fresh produce. 

Travis: Wow. It's, it's, it's pretty comprehensive, like the kinds of, you know, you, you, you're ranging from serving children in schools to providing community gardens for adults and families.

Uh, and how many, I guess, how many community gardens have you built or do you maintain currently in and around Asheville? 

Cathy: Again, getting back to this, uh, this word sovereignty. We help people start community gardens, but um, typically we are not [00:08:00] managing those gardens. Um, we, you know, help with tools. We help with education, we help support.

Um, we, you know, have ongoing support with seeds and seedlings and that sort of thing, but we really want people to be able to grow what they wanna grow and make decisions about what they want in their community. So we do manage the school gardens, um, in all of the schools that we work in, in the city of Asheville.

Uh, but we, you know, most of the community gardens are, are managed by the community. 

Travis: Of course. Yeah. Uh, so with, with the school garden, I wanna come back to the feast program because as I was talking to you, I, I think that's really fascinating to me and I think really how we're gonna change the direction of, uh, uh, this next generation [00:09:00] to be healthier, happier human beings, uh, because.

Gardening to me is, you know, I, I think back, like when I was creating my own community supported agriculture project back in Iowa where I'm from, I was doing a lot of research and I remember reading about how gardens were, you know, uh, the European, the ancestry of this gardening that we have in the US comes from from Europe.

And the idea in those days was that if you were wealthy enough, you could hide. Garden in the backyard. And so I had this big idea, this movement toward let's, let's try to place the garden in the front yard to create community and, uh, you know, and not look at gardening as this ugly thing that we should, that we should hide away.

Instead, looking at it as this amazing, beautiful co-creation between a human being and the plants and what that [00:10:00] can create. And so I guess tying that back to the feast program, where I feel like that is important for, for children to sort of get this, uh, interconnectedness that that happens when you observe what you, what you see when you plant the seed and you watch it grow and you see how, how it moves and, and everything around that.

So do you have any stories of, of children that have been helped in some capacity, whether it's emotional improvement or physical health improvement through participation in the FEAST program. 

Cathy: Yeah, actually we collect a lot of data , and we talk to a lot of parents and a lot of teachers and school psychologists , and of course the, the children who are in FEAST classes and 100% of parents report that.

Their children, they enjoy their children's enjoyment of [00:11:00] school is greater because of their participation in FEAST class. We have parents who report that, uh, they have children who might, have sensitivities around particular foods. . Meaning that , they don't like to eat very many things, and that feast increases their desire to try new foods and an increase of the amount of foods that they actually will consume.

We, we actually had one parent tell us that her child had limited. Uh, the number of foods that he would eat to five, five different things that he would eat, and one of them, I believe was hot dogs. Um, so by the end of the year after going through feast class, this child was making his own smoothies at home and , adding in [00:12:00] fruits and vegetables that he had never eaten before.

So. Those are the kinds of stories that we hear from parents , we had a school psychologist tell us that , they noted that children who had trouble regulating themselves in class , had better self-regulation after attending peace class and , were able to. Be calmer, and more focused. So we know that it affects children not just from a physical health perspective, but an , mental and emotional health perspective as well.

Travis: Hmm, yeah, I imagine so. Uh. Just being outside. I used to volunteer for an organic farm and back in Iowa again where I used to go there. And I just remember like it was so fun to be on that [00:13:00] farm and like planting seeds together with others and it feels like when you're out gardening conversation just like happens so naturally and so fluidly and I can imagine these kids just laughing and enjoying themselves and they're out doing some stuff and learning.

I just, I feel like it's a, a very natural and easy way for even maybe like children that might be a little more introverted, uh, to feel like they can get out and do something and, and be around others and express themselves in a different way. So tell me about the cooking aspect. I'm curious about how that works.

You know, that goes way above and beyond because it's one thing to teach somebody how to grow food, but. You also have at least 50% of the equations knowing how to, how to prepare it, right? 

Cathy: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So we work primarily with fresh fruits and vegetables when we're doing cooking classes. You know, we work with the seasons [00:14:00] so kids learn about seasonal fruits and vegetables, what's coming in from the garden.

Um. We do, we let them taste things when they're raw , you know, and, and just harvested and just washed, so that they know what they taste like when they're raw. And then we also provide, lots of opportunities for them to create a recipe. In their own way. Kids are so creative and, you know, even in kindergarten, kids want to add their own spices, you know, and they wanna choose which herbs they wanna put into things.

And so we often have a lot of options for a recipe. And, of course, you know , there's always the opportunity to taste, and then we find that [00:15:00] kids who might, might have some what might be labeled as picky eating habits are a lot more likely to taste Something in feast class , I had a parent tell me one time that it, that they were mad at me because their child.

Wanted to eat fennel all the time, and he was having a hard time finding fennel in the grocery store. And didn't eat very many fruits and vegetables. So to, to latch onto, to something that has such a robust flavor was, was noteworthy. 

Travis: That's great. Do you see changes ripple through, through the child's family as well.

Cathy: That's a great question. Yes. Um, as a matter of fact, we have had parents tell us that their children have started cooking.

For their families at home and preparing recipes [00:16:00] that they've learned in Peace's class at home. We even have had a couple of small businesses that children have started as a result of. Feast class. We had one student who learned how to make friend fries, which is basically french fries, but they're baked, with potatoes that were grown in the feast garden.

Um, and then started a little small neighborhood business where he was making french fries and selling them to neighbors. So, yeah, definitely making some, some impacts at home. 

Travis: Oh my gosh. I absolutely love that, that that's, that is so great. Anybody making salsa? 

Cathy: Yes, I, I, well, we make salsa in feast class all the time because you're right.

It is a, it's a great recipe for kids to be able to add their own ingredients in and decide what tastes good to them using fresh [00:17:00] herbs and, um. You know, maybe peppers, maybe not that kind of thing. 

Speaker 7: Any data that you collect that's surprising to you or you would, that you didn't expect to see? 

Cathy: I think that can be surprising when 100% of people say that something is working for them.

You know, because, uh, a lot of times when we hear data, it's like 98% of people say that this is working for them, you know? But to hear parents and teachers say, 100% this. Is having a positive impact on children feels really affirming. 

Travis: When you think about the kinds of problems that the feast program solves that are societal.

We have a lot of things that that plague our, uh, our culture. What do you [00:18:00] feel the Feast Program solves for societally? 

Cathy: Yeah, that's a good question. I, I think that, um, one of the things I think about a lot is, how much knowledge we lose over the generations, when we are disconnected from land and when we are disconnected from being outside and disconnected from.

Where our food comes from. You hear a lot of stories about people visiting a grandparent on a farm when they were younger. You don't really hear that many stories these days about people growing up on a farm. Um, at this point, only 10% of our population of farmers is under the age of 35. Meaning that our [00:19:00] farming population is rapidly aging, and as a result, young people are growing up without any exposure to food and farming and agriculture, and they can grow up having no idea that a carrot grows underground.

Most people wouldn't know that unless you see it. So it, it feels like we are not only solving for, you know, our, our health and our, bodies and our brains, emotional regulation. But also this sort of more systemic and societal problem of like, oh my gosh, where, who's gonna be growing the food? Um, because we are bridging that generational [00:20:00] knowledge gap 

Travis: And we don't want transnational corporations, growing.

The bulk, the vast majority of all of our food. We prefer , smaller local farmers because they know and care about the land and the people. You know, me being from Iowa, we, it's a, obviously a strong farming community. We, I mean, 90% of our land is corn, pretty much.

And so, you know, we watch how things change as like you said, the farmers. Either end up, you know, maybe selling their land or, and they get bought up. And then of course, there's just much less respect for the land and the community by large organizations that don't, that just trying to turn a profit.

The other thing I worry about, and I haven't, I don't know what the statistics are on this, and maybe you, you do, um, is the last thing I remember reading about, like, or, uh, subsidies that the government gives. You know, for organic versus not organic. If I remember right, it was like 1% or something like that.

Of all subsidies goes to [00:21:00] organic farmers. Do you have any data or understanding on how that trend is trending in the positive or negative direction? 

Cathy: Yeah. Another arm of our work that I haven't really touched on is, um, food policy. And Bountiful Cities was instrumental in starting the Asheville Bunum Food Policy Council, and it is so important for us to be supporting public policies that support.

Sustainable agriculture. I won't use the word organic, just because organic has been so commodified in our culture and, and it's actually quite expensive to get organic certification. And what happens is only huge, huge farms with, with big bank accounts can actually afford to get organic certification in many cases.

[00:22:00] So, sustainable agriculture is another term. Just a lot of times that means small family, diversified farms. And so, you know, as we're thinking about ways that we can support this movement, there are a lot of different angles we can come at it and, you know, advocacy and, and good food policies where public dollars are supporting.

Sustainable agricultural efforts is, is one of the ways. 

Travis: So I was in the store the other day, uh, and I was looking at eggs as we all night and I'm like, oh my gosh, there's a wide variety of egg choices and, which is great. Like I remember, you know, some number of years ago, there's like. Couple, couple kinds of eggs you could get.

Now there's, there's regular eggs, and then you've got cage free and you've got pasture rays. Uh, you've got USDA, [00:23:00] organic certified, uh, probably some other things. When I was looking at the egg, eggs and egg prices, I saw that there were like USDA certified. Something or another and they were like 11 or $12 for a dust.

And I was like, oh my gosh, this is like, okay, this might be the best of the best brand of eggs I can get most expensive. I'm like, I can't afford that. So then I saw that there were this other brand of pasture raised eggs, which I don't, not there to see the chickens running around, but I'm like, okay, that's kind of what I think is the gold standard for eggs is that they're able to actually roam.

And, um, so, but it wasn't USDA. Organic certified. And I bought those because I felt like it was, um, like you said, I, I'm like, you know, lots of farmers that I know personally when I ask them about it, you know, how do you raise your, your, your, uh, your animals, your vegetables, whatever it might be, [00:24:00] and we talk about, we have the organic conversation.

They're like, oh, we, we waste, we way exceed. What is required for, for the organic certification? It's just too expensive for us to go get it. We don't want to get it. How does a consumer know, I mean, maybe we're getting into the weeds here, but I feel like as a consumer, this is what's on people's minds because it costs a lot of money for doing some of these things.

Is there a way and, and to identify like good quality? But it's still affordable. 

Cathy: Um, you know, in a, yes, I think that that's a good way to go. Um, I think, again, you know, we talked about the commodification of things, so I, I think that as a culture we wanna slap a label on a lot of things and, and, um, and think that we're being good consumers when we, when we buy.

What is, what's trendy? Um, [00:25:00] I, I will say, you know, we, there are lots of books and lots of articles that, and lots of resources out there ab about like making good food purchases, like good choices depending on, um, you know, whether you're support supporting sustainable agriculture or whether you're supporting health.

Um. The best choice is to purchase it from a local farmer. Um, the more local, the better next door or in your own yard is the very best. Um, because then, you know, then you know where these things are coming from. You can see the chickens and you know, if they look healthy and, um, clean and. If the chickens are healthy and clean, then the eggs are probably gonna be good too.

Um, and there's, you know, there are a [00:26:00] lot of barriers to, uh, uh, you know, I don't wanna ignore the fact that there's a lot of barriers to growing your own and to purchasing from a local farm. It might be more expensive and not everybody can afford that. So, um, you know. We really wanna meet people where they are.

And, um, even if you, all you have is a bucket to grow something and you can grow some fresh herbs in your bucket of soil and, um, and that has an impact. It really does. Um, so. Just bringing it back to local and, and local is more sustainable because we're not shipping it across the country. 

Speaker 7: Perfect. Perfect answer.

I will, uh, put some resources in the show notes, uh, or, and maybe you and I [00:27:00] can talk offline, but I can put in, into the show notes, some resources for folks to go off and, and find some good local sources for, uh. For what we, what we're talking about here. Uh, okay. Well, let's, uh, kind of move on here. I've got a few other questions for you on sort of where you see the feast program growing.

Like what's your vision for it? Where do you wanna see it grow? How do you wanna see expand? What excites you?

Cathy: That's a great question for us right in this moment because right now we are developing in collaboration with Asheville City Schools and the Asheville City Schools Foundation and United Way and, um, children first, a lot of different organizations are involved in our effort to.

Make feast programming available in middle and high school as well. Right now we're in a, we're not [00:28:00] even yet in all of the elementary schools in Asheville. So we would like to expand in that direction too. But, there's so much opportunity for mentorship and for , taking this program to the next level in terms of workforce development , and connecting to , the CTE programs at the high school, which is the culinary education and, future, future Farmers of America.

Um, or FFA, which is a program also at the high school. And there's a lot of opportunity for students that went through feast because we've been around since 2009 as a program, uh, to go back to their elementary schools and mentor younger students in the gardens and in the kitchen. [00:29:00] So we're working on that right now.

I'm super excited to , see how that moves forward. At the very least, we'll be working in the, at Asheville Middle School this year with , with afterschool students through the in Real Life program and, and hoping to do some mentorship, through that program. 

Travis: Wow. That's, that's so cool. I'm totally rooting for, for Feast and for you and for everything that, that's going on.

What do you need most right now from, from the community in terms of support?

Cathy: Um, that's a great question too. Speaking of the feast program, um, part of the reason that we're not in all of the elementary schools is because it costs a lot for bountiful cities to run this program. The , the school district , is also underfunded and, um, so is not able to financially [00:30:00] support.

Through their budget. The feast program, we do collaboratively write grants and they write our program into grants that they are, that they're applying for. But this is an undervalued, type of education and as you say, it, it feels really important to have it be , available to more and more students.

So helping out financially is, is a big part of what we need. If that's not possible, then. Volunteering with the program. We have amazing school gardens that we are responsible for and that we do all the upkeep for throughout the school year, but then also throughout the summer when we have a lot less volunteers.

'cause a lot of our school garden volunteers are parents [00:31:00] and, um, and, and they're not as available in the summertime or they, you know, they might be away. Uh, and that is when the bulk of the work has to happen in the garden. So, uh, so that is an incredibly valuable way that people can support us. It's by volunteering.

Yeah. And, and then of course there's always behind the scenes work that is being done. And, um, you know, we're looking for people who can help us. Um, maybe, um. Thinking about leadership, maybe on our board of directors or maybe, um, thinking about, uh, administrative supports or doing social media posts for us, that kind of thing.

Travis: Excellent. Uh, yeah, sounds like you, you have a variety of skill sets that you could use to, to bring to bear, so that's great. So in [00:32:00] very short, in a very short answer form, I've got three questions for you. So, what is one food that you think everyone should try to grow?

Cathy: Oh, that's a great question. I'm gonna say. Green. It's because they're pretty simple to grow and they're very versatile. Any kind of green except lettuce, kale, arugula, collards, all of it. Wonderful. I love greens. Um, what's your favorite Asheville community space? Right now it's our Pearson Food Hub. And.

Community garden. It's just beautiful there. One food, one food memory that has shaped you. 

Yeah. I actually, I have a really beautiful food memory of, uh, sitting on my mom's lap when I. Could still do that. Um, [00:33:00] and I was probably about five years old and um, and she was letting me have tastes of things off of her plate.

And she had this big, beautiful salad on her plate and I remember taking a bite of that. And my dad was the primary cook in our family. And, um, and. I remember loving it. And I don't know that I had eaten salad before, but there was something about this salad. My dad made his own salad dressing and it was always like, really like, um, rich and garlicy.

And I remember just thinking, oh my gosh, this is so good. I want more of that. And, um, I have, um, I. Loved, loved to eat salad my whole life, [00:34:00] probably because of that. And, um, find that kids, um, if they put the right thing on their salad, meaning whatever dressing tastes good to them, they love it too. 

Speaker 7: Kathy, it's been really my pleasure to talk to you today.

It's been really awesome. Thank you for being here. I really appreciate the time that you've, that you've given me. Uh, and to support food justice work in Asheville or get involved in a garden project, please visit bountifulcities.org or you can find them on social media. Kathy's worker reminds us that food is more than fuel.

It's a path to connection, culture, and healing. Thanks once again, Kathy. 

Cathy: Thank you, Travis. This has been fun. 

bye. 

. 

Speaker 5: Thank you for listening. To learn more about Be Well Asheville, visit be well avl.com. And don't forget to follow this podcast. You can catch the next episode and bring us along waiting for brunch at Sunny Point Cafe. Walking your dog around Beaver Lake or relaxing [00:35:00] in Pack square. 

if you loved what you heard, please rate and review this show. Your review helps others discover and grow our wellness community. You can check out Asheville Wellness News Events and our newsletter@bewellavl.com. Thank you for being the best part of our wellness community. And until next time, be well