“Stumbling Blindly Forward.”
That is going to be the title of Danny Swann’s memoirs.
“It is and that’s because I didn’t have any aspirations of getting into farming in some formal way,” he said. “But here I am today.”
Swan in the co-founder and has served as executive director of Grow Ohio Valley since March 2014, and the non-profit now operates five farming facilities in the Wheeling area. The Public Market, located on the bottom level of the Robert C. Byrd Intermodal Transportation Center in downtown Wheeling, represents another Grow OV venture and offers now just the organization’s fresh foods but also features a number of additional products from a plethora of local farms.
All of it, though, was not in Swan’s plans when he was graduated from Wheeling Jesuit University in 2009.
“Initially, my interest in growing food started with gardening with my mother at home,” Swan said. “When I first moved to East Wheeling after college, I lived on 14th Street first and I was working at the Laughlin Chapel for their afterschool programs. Now, I didn’t have any formal education for teacher, but I was put in charge of a classroom. I decided I had to get the kids outside, so thought to myself, ‘What do I know?
“That’s when we got permission to use some of the land under the bridges along 18th Street, and the high school boys I had in the classroom enjoyed it,” he recalled. “Those boys were great and they got interested in going to the farmer’s markets with what we were growing to see if they could make some money. They even showed up at 4:30 a.m. to harvest for a Saturday morning market. That’s when I thought, ‘Alright, let’s do this market thing and see what happens.’”
Knowing the Neighbors
Once word about the teenagers’ farming spread through East Wheeling, some of the adult residents became interested in creating personal gardens on a vacant lot along 15th Street. Swan, of course, got involved with building his neighbors’ planting boxes, selecting what would grow best with the available sunlight, and the seeding.
A couple of months later and it was harvest time.
“Those folks really got involved. They had a good time,” Swan said. “We had a really diverse group of folks that got involved and when it came time to harvest, they really enjoyed that because it was something they did.
“Those gardens were more about home consumption,” he explained. “And those folks kept them going for a few years. But it did show me that there was a lot of interest in that kind of produce here in the city. When I first moved to East Wheeling it was the first time I ever lived in the city. I grew up in the middle of nowhere and couldn’t see my neighbor’s house because they lived so far away. So, moving to the city was a new neighborhood experience.”
And that neighborhood birthed the idea for Grow Ohio Valley.
“The demand for fresh foods was definitely there and the people in East Wheeling made it obvious to me that not everyone in Wheeling had access to them. That’s when we really started doing our homework about access and food deserts in urban areas,” Swan said. “I really hadn’t realized the access issue when I was in college because the grocery store was right next door to the campus.”
Concrete City
East Wheeling, one of Wheeling first neighborhoods, rests east of the downtown and possesses residential, commercial, and industrial properties. There is an exit and an entrance to W.Va. Route 2 along 16th Street, and the offices for the Diocese of Wheeling Charleston are next door to Central Catholic High School.
Green spaces, though, are limited to the vacant lots left following demolitions so gardening was not part of the collective mindset.
That is until Swan stepped in.
“Living in the city doesn’t have to mean we have to accept the absence of food that is fresh and healthy for us. And a point I made with a lot of people is that fresh food is the best thing you can feed your kids,” Swan said. “That’s when we started to develop the infrastructure for healthy food production in the city, and started to develop the farmers, too, for farming in the city. It was a concept that really became popular, and the city has been great to work with.
“If you are critically thinking human and you’re awake with your eyes open, you quickly realize that eating organic foods is really the best thing for your health. That’s why Grow Ohio Valley grows organic foods, and so do a lot of other farmers in this area. Some of them may not be a certified organic farm, but they all do a great job to grow what they do in the best way possible for the people in this area.”
Everywhere a Farm
While Grow Ohio Valley began its operations in East Wheeling, the non-profit has grown into a leased farm along Big Wheeling Creek Road in the portion of Wheeling that is in Marshall County.
The facility also is where young adults are taught the nuances of the farming trade so they can decide if it is what they wish to do to make a living.
“Grow Ohio Valley leases that land from the Covenant Community Church. They do have a lovely garden there so they can help people in need, but most of the acreage is what we use,” Swan explained. “The concept out there is partly food production, but we utilize those acres as a training place. We have a lot of people who come to us from Americorps and that land is where they learn how to do what we do. Some of those young people want to farm as a career so we use it as something of an incubator, too, so they can take five acres, use the equipment and the barn that is already there, and really hone their skills.
“It’s all about exposing people to the opportunities that are available, getting them some access to capital and business planning, and getting them on their feet so they can grow local food for their community,” he added. “We also have the high tunnels at Lincoln Meadow above downtown Wheeling, and those are covered gardens we can grow a lot of things all year long. We also have a lot of education that is taking place there now and that allows us to have the school students there all year long.”
All part of Swan’s grand plan?
“Not in the beginning,” he admitted. “But I have been stumbling blindly forward after all.”
(Photos provided by Grow Ohio Valley)
