Fighting food insecurity through mutual aid

Editor’s note: This story has been updated for the May “Home & Garden” issue of CityView Magazine, which can be read online starting May 1. It now highlights the ongoing work by Er’Body Eatz founder J’Kwan Fulmore and volunteers to build a homestead at Cliffdale Community Church in addition to the Crashout Gardening Project. 

About 15 volunteers pulled into Cliffdale Community Church’s parking lot on Thursday, April 17. It was a muggy, overcast day, but the volunteers were ready to work.

For two hours, they mixed and poured concrete, dug a mulch pit, backfilled the bottom of an old barn, and sprayed used tires with lime.

By sundown, they had laid the groundwork for what J’Kwan Fulmore hopes will become a homestead for residents to come together for farm-to-table meals, learn to grow their own food, and participate in activities like yoga. Everything will be free of charge so all Cumberland County residents have access to a community space and fresh, nutritious food.

The homestead is a project from Fulmore’s nonprofit Er’Body Eatz, which combats food injustice through gardening. Through the nonprofit, Fulmore is gathering community members to help build gardens that feed the thousands of residents who go hungry every day.

“This garden is here as a resource for those who suffer from food insecurity and food injustice,” Fulmore said. “It’s a silent fight. Most of the time, people don’t even know that they suffer from food insecurity.”

Hunger in Cumberland County

Food injustice is the unequal access to affordable, fresh, nutritious and culturally relevant foods. It’s a broader movement that spun out of efforts to address food insecurity, which is when a household can’t afford enough food to live healthy lives.

Feeding America found that about 17% of Cumberland County residents suffered from food insecurity in 2022. As of February, 35,959 Cumberland County households receive SNAP, a federal benefit for low-income families to help them afford groceries. Shannon Gettings, Cumberland County Food Policy Council member and supervisory nurse at Womack Army Medical Center’s Department of Public Health’s Public Health Clinic, said approximately 75% of the county’s public school students receive free or reduced-price meals.

Food injustice also includes food swamps and food deserts. Food swamps are areas with more fast and junk food than healthy alternatives. Cumberland County has over 92 fast-food restaurants per 100,000 residents, about 15 more than the state average, according to the county’s 2024 community health needs assessment.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture defines food deserts as low-income census tracts with limited access to retailers selling affordable, fresh foods. Gettings said over a quarter of Cumberland County’s census tracts meet this definition.

“Some of the most affected areas include the Murchison Road corridor, parts of Spring Lake and Massey Hill,” she said. “Additionally, Cumberland County has a number of rural communities that face unique food access challenges. These areas are also considered food deserts, and residents often have to travel long distances to reach grocery stores and other food resources.”

More than food

After just one meeting with Fulmore, Cliffdale Community Church’s Senior Pastor Dale Paschall offered the church’s grounds as the location for the Er’Body Eatz homestead. 

The pastor’s buy-in stems from Fulmore’s vision for the homestead: a community space for everyone to enjoy and access nutritious food. Fulmore and the pastor discussed incorporating gardening into the church’s substance use recovery program, Recovery Alive. 

Fulmore also plans to host farm-to-table meals using the food grown onsite and in surrounding areas. He wants people to host fitness classes under the canopy he plans to install. He hopes youth programs will use the space as an outdoor classroom.

“We want this to be more than a place where you just grow food,” Fulmore said.

Fulmore is working to get a transportation company or volunteers to shuttle residents to the homestead from areas like the Murchison Road corridor, who are most in need of fresh food.

“These things don’t just happen overnight,” he said. “But we want to become that resource for you, and so that’s just what we’re working on doing.”

‘Bring the village back’

Fulmore’s Crashout Gardening Project is another way Er’Body Eatz fights food injustice in Cumberland County. 

The project is part of the nonprofit’s From TrapHouse to Greenhouse initiative, which turns foreclosed, abandoned and otherwise dilapidated properties into gardens producing fruits and vegetables for neighbors to enjoy. The first Crashout Gardening Project gardens are in a trailer home neighborhood off Rim Road. 

Homeowners don’t need to do anything besides agree to host the garden and enjoy its fruits. Fulmore and volunteers take care of the planting, harvesting and processing. For those interested, Fulmore will hold cooking classes using the produce grown in their gardens. He and his volunteers can also educate homeowners about urban agriculture and garden maintenance.

“We want to teach people how to garden and how to grow their own food, but we want to do it from the comfort of their own neighborhoods,” Fulmore said. “Have neighbors helping neighbors, growing food within your backyard that you can share with your neighbors. It’s bringing the village back.”

Fulmore said a lot of door-knocking and neighborhood engagement went into getting the homes in the Rim Road neighborhood to agree to host a garden. He wanted to earn the right to put the project in the neighborhood rather than imposing it upon them.

Fulmore is still working on getting gardens in the Murchison Road corridor.

The power of mutual aid

Er’Body Eatz is why Fulmore is back in Fayetteville after working as a personal chef for current NFL Denver Broncos wide receiver Trent Sherfield.

“This is supposed to be my legacy that I leave to the city,” Fulmore said. “My parents raised me to be an upstanding citizen, and this is what I want to do.”

Fulmore is funding this legacy primarily with his own money. His parents are also helping where they can.

Many materials for the homestead and gardens come from donations. As Fulmore grew his network of volunteers and more people heard about his efforts to address food injustice, they connected him with sources of soil and space to grow seedlings, and donated seeds, PVC piping and used tires. 

The network also donates knowledge that Fulmore doesn’t have, such as composting with worms and hydroponics.

While Fulmore has brought his From TrapHouse to Greenhouse initiative to county, city and town government officials for support, the governments’ slow movement pushed him to ask residents for help. He is still open to working with local governments, but couldn’t stand waiting any longer, knowing residents were struggling to access food.

The mutual aid methods Er’Body Eatz operates with have their own struggles. Fulmore was nervous that no one would show up to volunteer on that Thursday in April. But at the end of an evening’s work — with double the number of volunteers he expected asking when they could come next — Fulmore knew it was the right decision. And he answered: every Thursday from 5 to 7 p.m. and every Saturday from 9 a.m. to noon.

“I’m learning that the people of Fayetteville are the ones who are going to make the most change,” Fulmore said. “If I could change anything since moving back to Fayetteville, I would have started with coming straight to the people first because they love their city.”

CityView Reporter Morgan Casey is a corps member with Report for America, a national service program that places journalists into local newsrooms. Morgan’s reporting focuses on health care issues in and around Cumberland County and can be supported through the News Foundation of Greater Fayetteville.