Why Serve in Mississippi? 

Mississippi is the birthplace of American music, a major arena in the Civil Rights Movement, and the home of many of our nation’s most prolific voices and creative minds — Richard Wright, William Faulkner, BB King, Tennessee Williams, Oprah Winfrey, Jim Henson, David Banner, and Eudora Welty, to name a few. Step onto the soil in the Mississippi Delta and you’ll walk over some of the most fertile ground in the country. And with Mississippi’s moderate winter temperature, there is no fallow season in our neck of the woods! However, the complicated agricultural history of the state has stripped the soil of its nutrients and left a heavy impact on both urban and rural areas.

Mississippians face more barriers to health and have higher rates of diabetes and other diet-related diseases than any other state. But strides are being made to address and reverse this, and they seem to be working.

There is a growing community of people around the state that are committed to healing our connection to the land and food production through community-oriented agriculture, and many interconnected initiatives working to make schools and communities healthier places to eat, learn and grow.

Save