Crystal Bowne of Conway didn’t put much thought into the food she ate until she moved to Austin, Texas, to figure out what she wanted to do with her life.
“I was 23, and I considered myself prior to that, I don’t know — a lost soul — just trying to find my way,” she said.
The 38-year-old North Carolina native found her path through gardening. She is an Arkansas GardenCorps service member, and she is passionate about helping people eat healthier and ending food insecurity. She oversees the Urban Farm Project at the Faulkner County Library in Conway, and she has helped nonprofit
organizations in Conway start gardens. Arkansas GardenCorps is an AmeriCorps program based at the Arkansas Children’s Hospital Research Institute.
Bowne said her parents didn’t garden — her father worked in a Frigidaire factory, and her mother was a homemaker. Bowne worked on her associate degree at a community college close to home, but she took time off and moved to Austin to think about what she really wanted to do.
“I met a lady who had ovarian cancer — who has since died — and at the time, she was connecting it to food,” Bowne said. “She made a huge impact on me.”
Bowne took classes, such as world religion, at an Austin community college.
“I loved school, always loved school,” she said.
“I was gardening, but I was mainly doing container gardening at this point because I didn’t have a home,” she said. Bowne said she grew things like tomatoes, peppers and herbs. “I also fell in love with plants in Austin; I started having lots of plants.”
She moved back to North Carolina, this time to the city of Boone, and fell in love again — with her now-husband, Eric. She finished her undergraduate degree in philosophy and religion, with a minor in anthropology, at Appalachian State University in Boone.
Bowne moved back to Austin for a year and applied to graduate programs, and she ended up at the University of Georgia, where she earned a master’s degree in religion and a graduate certificate in Native American studies. At the university, she taught Judaism, Christianity, Islam and Native American studies.
The Bownes came to Arkansas five years ago when Eric, an anthropologist, took a position at Arkansas Tech University. They first lived in Russellville, but when he took a job at the University of Central Arkansas, the couple moved to Conway.
Volunteering quickly became second nature to Bowne, especially relating to gardens.
While the couple were in Russellville, she volunteered through All Saints Episcopal Church, which had a garden on the church property. Called “the edible churchyard,” Bowne said, plots are rented to community members.
“I teamed up with them; we wrote a community-improvement grant for Entergy,” she said. “The middle school is right beside the churchyard, and [church members] wanted to start getting the kids to come over there. In order to do that, we had to put a gate in; otherwise, it was considered a field trip because they had to go off-property and go around,” Bowne said. The grant, which was awarded, funded a gate, tools and a garden shed.
Bowne was also working with a seed-trading organization, and through a friend, she heard about the Faulkner County Urban Farm Project.
“In 2010, when the Faulkner County Urban Farm Project broke ground, I came and helped them do that. I needed some dirt in my life,” Bowne said.
The couple moved to Conway in May 2014, and one of Bowne’s first stops was at the Faulkner County Library to see if the garden she’d helped planted was still there. It was, and she was surprised at how much it had grown.
“Then I stumbled into The Locals in downtown,” she said. “My husband and I, we like to support local economy, and we like to support local farmers.”
Sandra Leyva, executive director of The Locals, told Bowne about the Arkansas GardenCorps position. Bowne applied and got the position, which started in September. The Faulkner County Urban Farm Project is a program of La Lucha Space, the nonprofit organization over The Locals. Although The Locals no longer has its downtown location, the organization is planning pop-up farmers markets and more.
“I’m the first service member they’ve had,” Bowne said of The Locals. “This also is the first year for the Faulkner County Urban Farm Project to be a service site for Arkansas GardenCorps.
“We want people to go out there and be involved and be excited about it and own it, if they want to.” Bowne said she has set hours that she’s at the garden, immediately north of the library, which is a first for the project.
Leyva praised Bowne for her work as an Arkansas GardenCorps member.
“Since Crystal started serving, the garden has seen dramatic improvements in its ability to reach into the community,” Leyva said. Bowne has helped plant gardens at Bethlehem House, the Women’s Shelter of Central Arkansas and the Faulkner County Day School, all in Conway.
Bowne increased programming at the library by establishing the Garden Club, a weekly group for children ages 7 and older, and the Green Reader Book Club for adults. The Garden Club’s first meeting was scheduled for last week. Bowne said the kids would get a little lesson, but getting them outside was the goal.
“The main thing is to get them excited about gardening,” she said.
By planting more in the garden at the library, Bowne is also meeting the goal of increasing the amount of food donated to the St. Peter’s Episcopal Church food pantry in Conway.
The mission of Arkansas GardenCorps, according to its website, is to promote the use of school and community gardens to provide nutrition education with the purpose of reducing childhood obesity and to increase environmental awareness and sustainable agriculture practices in Arkansas communities.
Bowne’s service will be up at the end of August, and Leyva said The Locals is applying to host another Arkansas GardenCorps member.
The Faulkner County Urban Farm Project can be a service site for two more years, Bowne said.
“It’s a great library, so after it’s no longer a service site, hopefully someone will see the benefit of hiring a gardening librarian. That’s what I hope,” she said. In talking to another library with such a position, Bowne said, she knows the librarian would have other duties in addition to overseeing the garden.
Bowne’s goals for herself include possibly going back to school.
“I may end up going and getting a master’s degree in public health because that would open up a lot of doors for me,” she said.
One thing won’t change, though — her need to dig in the dirt.
“I will continue to be a community volunteer for gardening,” she said. “It’s my passion.”
Senior writer Tammy Keith can be reached at (501) 327-0370 or tkeith@arkansasonline.com.