RAFI Staff

In 2007, Reverend James Joyner and other church members started the Conetoe Family Life Center, which provides mentorship, resources, and after-school programs to the town's youth. In its search for a project that would inspire and educate youth, the Center piloted a two-acre community garden.

Reverend Eddie McNair, of New Life Agribusiness Center, points out future pastureland for chicken, hogs, and sheep.It’s not too common that someone moves back to northeastern North Carolina to farm. And it’s even more unusual when instead of growing the region’s big crops of cotton, peanuts, soybeans, wheat, and tobacco, he or she starts to grow produce with their congregation for a retail market.

After some arduous workdays and many seed and seedling donations from Sow True Seed, Southern Seed Exposure, and Grow and Share, the PJC Farming project is off to a green start.