(KATV) Little Rock - If you plant a seed and water it, it will grow. Aaron Reddin has made it his life's mission to help the state's homeless population. When he noticed how much unhealthy food they were eating, he decided to turn two acres off Faulkner Lake Road into what is now known as "The Field".
Aaron says, "The idea is just to provide some fresh and descent food for our homeless neighbors, a lot of folks end up eating nothing but leftovers or expired food."
Volunteers expect to produce a full crop this year. They're building chicken hoop houses and have about 46 chicks that will soon be moved outside. Reddin says they'll buy more chicks to build up to about 150 laying hens.
"God gives us the tools to grow food; I mean it comes out of the ground. It's a little bit of labor to get all this set up and ready but after you get the infrastructure in, we're just basically growing food and getting it to people."
Saturday, March 9, nearly 200 youth volunteers from area church groups helped with everything from working in The Field to sorting clothes in the warehouse. The most volunteers they've had at one time. Taylor Pate is with United Methodist Church in Maumelle. She says, "We chose this organization because it is enough space for our large group to work together and we believe in helping people. I feel like kids are able to get their hands dirty and see what it takes to grow food and what people actually have to do so that we can feed ourselves."
A volunteer planting seeds says, "Hopefully it will rain tomorrow, water them in and we'll be set."
Through research, they estimate when all two acres of The Field produces fruits and vegetables, they can grow about six-millions of pound of food a year. Reddin adds, "It is simple. I've been pounding my head thinking why didn't we do this sooner. Why do we have kids all over the world dying of starvation everyday and we're complaining about hunger in the world... food comes out of the ground."
Their next goal is to educate kids and homeless on getting a green thumb and profit off selling produce at farmers markets. "All of Central Arkansas, they're great. We have folks out here we know, we have folks out here we've never met. Folks come out and support it and... it's going to make me cry if I talk about it so I'm just grateful to our community, we are a great community."
For more information on The Field, click here.
Chicken Hoop House
Aaron Reddin
