Sweet Grown Alabama Blogs

We are just a simple family from Etowah County Alabama. We reside in Hokes Bluff, a small city attached to the larger metropolitan area of Gadsden. Our farm started in July 2010 as an idea. Since then, our journey has grown, and we are now on the precipice of finally realizing a dream that we feel is inspired by our faith in God.

It's not a secret that Alabama imports almost 90% of all its produce, even though we are a great agricultural state. Our state is plagued by food deserts and lack of fresh produce, especially in our rural areas throughout Alabama and especially our state school system. When we started Gardens On Air – A Local Farm, Inc. our intention was that of helping others through food. It has been an arduous and long road indeed. We have had great support from Sweet Grown Alabama since the beginning and the Alabama Department of Agriculture with Mr. Don Wambles. We’ve had our highs and lows. As any business does.

It has always been our dream to service our school kids in Alabama. We’ve always felt that our kids should be fed Alabama grown produce. Up until about a year ago we were not able to do this because we couldn’t grow enough. We were finally able to purchase a 25,500 sq. ft. closed grocery store in Hokes Bluff and make it into a Controlled Environment Agriculture Farm. We started selling our produce to Hoover City Schools slowly. We have made some great strides with up-to-date equipment and look forward to being able to start providing produce full time starting this fall. Our dream is to provide the whole State of Alabama school system with Alabama grown produce within the next couple of years.

We are currently partnering with Coosa Christian School in Gadsden and helping to build one of the largest school educational farms in the State of Alabama. It is our intention to partner with them to provide a large portion of fresh produce to those in need in our county and to provide on the job training. We will also educate kids throughout the county on the benefits of owning a business and how to properly run a successful business from start to finish. Farming not only feeds the body, but it feeds the mind as well. We are grateful for the opportunities that Alabama has given us and very grateful that “Sweet Grown Alabama” is an avenue for people like us to use.