When it comes to chasing dreams, Channing and Brandon Perdue have written the playbook. They’ve literally moved the earth in their unshakeable quest to fight hunger.
What started out as a small-scale farming operation to teach their four children where their food comes from has become a program to educate people about sustainable farming practices and provide quality products for their community.
This mission led them to incorporate Farms Helping Families in 2021 as an educational business endeavor and launch the Cedar Creek Market in Fayetteville, a farm-to-table marketplace where a collection of farmers, producers and artisans will sell their products. Both businesses are located on Cedar Creek Road. The market will open to the public by July 1.
“I began my love for growing things when I had our first daughter,” Channing said. “One day, I asked her where she thought food came from and she said ‘Walmart.’”
That conversation ignited a spark, inspiring Channing to explore the concepts around industrial farming, which feeds the masses, and small-scale farming, which feeds families and individuals.
“It planted a seed in her, so to speak,” Channing’s husband, Brandon, quipped. “She wanted to start raising food for our family in a garden with a small flock of chickens.”
At the time, the Perdues lived in Hope Mills after moving to Cumberland County in 2007 to accommodate Brandon’s service in the U.S. Army at Fort Bragg.
Over their almost 20 years of marriage, some of it long-distance during Brandon’s deployments, their path has not always been easy, but they share a spirit of deep resolve and have never met an obstacle they could not overcome.
After outgrowing their small Hope Mills home, they discovered an urban paradise on Cedar Creek Road, with 10 acres of land so well hidden off the busy roadway that passersby would hardly notice it’s there. They’ve lived and farmed there for over seven years.
The property is just around four miles from the heart of downtown Fayetteville, and on some evenings when the traffic dies down and the wind is still, they can hear noise from Segra Stadium.
It’s a short stroll from the Perdues’ back door to their pristine barnyard — home to goats, cows, pigs, chickens, turkeys, horses, and a team of Great Pyrenees dogs assigned to protect the livestock from predators. It’s birthing season, and the expectant mothers, newborn calves, piglets and baby goats make it difficult for Channing to estimate the size of her livestock population.
The land was not always fit for farming, Brandon says.
“It was 70 percent forest when we bought it,” he said. “The farm hadn’t been active in probably 20 years, and we put a lot of work getting it to where it’s at now.”
For some, the idea of clearing 10 acres of long-neglected land and remaking it into a farm might have proved impossible, but Brandon laughs when he recalls his evolution into an agricultural landscaper.
“When we moved here from Hope Mills, I had no tools,” he said. “We had a push lawnmower that wasn’t even self-propelled, and we didn’t have a lot of money to hire anyone to come in and do the work for us.”
Bit by bit, he acquired the equipment and help he needed to get the job done.
so they grow up comfortable around people. Credit: James Throssel / CityView
Farming has been a learning curve for Channing, too. The first time she tried to milk a goat, she found herself relying on a YouTube instructional video.
A relationship she has forged with Lisa Childers, the Cumberland County Cooperative Extension director, has helped smooth Channing’s path.
“Lisa has literally been my best friend through this, and all the agents are amazing,” she said. “They know me and my family, they’ve been to my farm, and the best thing is knowing they’re in my corner.”
The Cumberland County Cooperative Extension has also brought soldiers and interns into the Perdues’ corner through its Soldiers to Agriculture Program and the Department of Defense’s SkillBridge program.
Cumberland County Extension Agent Corey Deibel runs the Soldiers to Agriculture program and says he relies on farmers like the Perdues to provide military personnel with the knowledge and experience to get into farming.
Soldiers to Agriculture is a five-week program offered three times a year and geared toward transitioning service members, as well as spouses and veterans, into farming and other skills like agribusiness development and beekeeping.
“A lot of these folks come in not to get another job, they just want to farm or homestead to help heal from previous military operations or deployments,” Deibel said.
Programs like Farms Helping Families also inspire service members to see that with hard work, perseverance and dedication, their dreams can become a reality.
And through the DOD SkillBridge program, industry partners, like the Perdues, are connected with service members transitioning into civilian life to help them gain real-world, civilian job experience. This is done “through specific industry training, apprenticeships, or internships during the last 180 days of service,” according to the DOD SkillBridge program website.
“We’ve hosted five Skillbridge interns,” Channing said. “Some want to establish their own farms and others are actively running family farms, or they plan to take over when their aging family members retire.”
For Channing, a turning point came the first time someone stopped by the farm asking for food. Then others started coming at the rate of two or three per month. Thinking about it stirs her to tears.
“People come to my farm and tell me they’re hungry, that they don’t have any food, and they ask if I can help them,” she said.
She responds by giving them meat, eggs, vegetables or whatever she has available.
“I never want anybody to go hungry,” she said.
In this way, Farms Helping Families has also become part of Channing’s faith-based purpose to alleviate food insecurity, not by simply giving it away, but by teaching people sustainable practices.
“I know hunger and unhoused populations are never-ending battles, and my dream comes from helping families learn how to grow their own food,” she said.
To enable the expansion needed to fully serve the community, the Perdues recently purchased 400 acres of untamed land along Cross Creek Road that backs up to the Cape Fear River. It was the Fayetteville site of Dowd Brothers Dairy, a historic dairy farm that operated from 1956 until 1973.
Known as one of the state’s largest dairy farms during its lifetime, the farm supplied milk to Fort Bragg and the greater community.
Owner Curtis Dowd, who died in 2017, was inducted into the Cumberland County Agricultural Hall of Fame in 1998.
The old farmland is overgrown and forested, but the Perdues have discovered remnants from the dairy’s glory days, including the barn’s foundation, a few silos and some pieces of equipment long abandoned. According to records in the Cumberland County Register of Deeds office, a variety of owners previously held deeds to the property, including members of the Rosser family.
They have built about 5 miles of trails for hiking, biking and horseback riding, and aim to make the entire property usable for farming and recreation. They know it may take decades, but they don’t see it as an impossible obstacle.
“With our experience at our farm and understanding overgrowth and how to make it usable, we know what it will take, and we’re basically working on small chunks of it at a time,” Brandon said.
Some days, Brandon and Channing feel overwhelmed but are never deterred.
“We always keep moving forward,” she said. “We can’t afford to be negative because there’s always something going wrong that we have no control over.”
Currently, the Perdues are focused on completing some fencing and opening the market.
“These are huge priorities, and we’ve had delays, like discovering an animal is giving birth, or the cows have gotten out of their pasture,” she said. “There were two nights recently when Brandon was out on the farm until about 11 both nights fixing shelters, and that was after he worked at his job all day.”
She relies on giving herself grace and setting priorities.
“I must understand how much I can do and be okay with that and not beat myself up,” she said. “Mainly, what motivates me is hearing God’s voice telling me to keep going.”
Channing and Brandon, both 45, have learned that it’s never too late to have a dream and strive to make it come true. Channing says she was in her mid-30s when she discovered her passion for farming.
“When I found farming, I discovered that it’s hard, but it is my God-given gift,” she said. “I would say I’ve learned that if your dream doesn’t scare you, then it’s probably not big enough.”
Read CityView Magazine’s “The Military Issue” July 2025 e-edition here.