(WBBM NEWSRADIO) — The way Michelle DeRaedt describes it, it’s a calling: the desire to grow food and to feed people.
She said she used to pass a house in far west suburban Batavia, on Hart Road, and longed to knock on the door and offer to show the family there how to grow food on their exceptional property.
“I just never grew the courage to do that,” DeRaedt told WBBM Newsradio’s Steve Miller.
She did decide she wanted to join a community garden in Batavia. She checked out social media to find out where one might be. She didn’t find anything.
So, DeRaedt announced she would try to start a community garden. The biggest challenge was: She had no land.
Then she got a call from someone, offering land as a potential community garden site.
“She gave me the address, and I drove to that property, and it was the same property that I used to drive by for years,” DeRaedt said.
The Batavia Community Garden is now in its first growing season. About 20 volunteers grow for themselves and for the Batavia Interfaith Food Pantry.