White Oak Urban Farm
Meet one of our Urban Farm Leaders, Jose Abreu! Jose is passionate about healing and localizing our food system and has been an advocate for urban farming in High Point for several years. He has been operating Twin Oaks Urban Farm since the Spring of 2018, and channels his passion into each row, evidenced by his thoughtful approach. The Twin Oaks Urban Farm will provide healthy, nutrient dense produce, while providing a green space for the community to interact with nature. The farm vision is to create lasting beauty, sustainable, social, and economic change in our community.
Beeson Urban Farm
The farm is owned by Beeson Hardware. Ed Spivey, the company's president, had a wonderful relationship with Floyd Smith, who was an avid gardener. Together, they operated the garden to help provide produce for their community. Now, GHP farms the land where our chickens also reside, contributing to the support of Barbara Smith, Floyd Smith's widow, and the continuation of his legacy. All of the produce grown supports GHP's programs, including Growdega and Farm to Senior Produce.
Berry Ridge Urban Farm
Berry Ridge Farm was established through the Business High Point - Chamber of Commerce's Leadership High Point Cohort of 2023. In the fall of 2022, they approached us to discuss Growing High Point sponsoring their service project. Enthusiastic about our efforts in urban agriculture and community revitalization, members of the cohort identified us as an ideal partner. Following our selection, we collaborated on transforming a vacant lot on E. Green Drive into a medicinal berry and herbal tea farm. With their expertise and resources, we successfully opened the farm to the public on May 25th, 2023. Our mission is to cultivate a variety of agricultural products that promote holistic health, emphasizing food as medicine.
​
Ryanna Henderson joined Growing High Point in 2023 as a Farmer in Training. She is now building our Tea program out of Berry Ridge. Since beginning with GHP, she has developed knowledge of urban farming practices and infrastructure; including site selection, soil maintenance, plant selection and management, and urban farm infrastructure. Moving Forward, she is working on creating tea blends that will be available on Growdega and at the High Point Public Library focusing on naturally grown flowers and herbs.
Pershing Greenhouses
​​​The Pershing Greenhouse is now managed by Amanda Mitchel, Farm to Table Coordinator. Amanda has a passion for cultivating plants. She specializes in environmental biology, sustainable development, and plant propagation. Additionally, she enjoys sharing with others the knowledge that she’s gained through her own education and growing experiences. Empowering members of the community with fundamental information about plants is essential to building connections among people and their environment. Growing High Point provides opportunities for the community to access their potential in ways that she has been pursuing her entire life. Her methodology is to plant a garden, feed a family, build a business, and share with neighbors.
GHP Urban Acres
In the Fall of 2016, The Hayden-Harman Foundation acquired several vacant lots with the vision of flipping these vacant lots into sustainable urban farms. Through the Adopt-a-Lot program, we have acquired and transformed several others. Our five (5) urban farms are located within the core city and provide local and organic produce to every resident. In addition to our farms, we manage a community orchard off the greenway by Southside Recreation Center.
Growing High Point's farms are directly managed by our Director of Operations, Jose Abreu, and other GHP staff.​Each Urban Farm Leader is able to receive support from Growing High Point and has access to Jose, to design an urban agriculture enterprise, explore avenues to market, and maximize their profitability. In addition to this, our Urban Farm Leaders have access to our Food Hub, where they are able to process and package their produce. We strive to be able to build a robust network of Urban Farm Leaders to meet our vision for the City.
Urban Farm Network
Drozik's Urban Farms
Garden In The Hood
Andre Davis planted Garden in the Hood on a vacant family-owned lot in 2014. The garden started with one simple thought, “you can’t eat grass”, so he turned a lawn into a food producing area. Over the last few years, Andre has grown a wide range of seasonal vegetables using organic practices. As an Urban Farm Leader, Andre also cares about engaging with the youth surrounding his garden and is excited to teach them where their food comes from. Andre recently expanded his garden by adding some raised beds and he also built compost bins made out of recycled pallets.
Furlough Garden
In the Summer of 2019, Growing High Point partnered with Urban Farm Leader Andre Davis to formalize an all boys youth mentorship gardening program. Andre spent several weeks taking the kids in the neighborhood to learn about gardening from seed to harvest, as well as teaching important life skills. Andre has been invested in educating youth in the neighborhood for several years and is a positive role model to each child he meets. In 2023, Andre joined GHP as Community Liaison. Since then, he has been working with our Youth Employees and various community partners.
Backyard Garden
Kahlil Siler is one of Growing High Point’s Youth Mentors. As a youth employee, Kahlil gained hands-on skills in urban agriculture, sales transactions, event planning, and leadership. While working with us, Kahlil learns all about sustaining a greater local food system and is committed to supporting us in any way he can. Now, Kahlil is a youth farmer, running his own small farm under the mentorship and guidance of Jose and Andre. In addition, he works with over 20 of our youth employees to provide mentorship on our Urban Farms.
