Walter Pulliam, owner of Pulliam Farms in LaFayette, Alabama, brought a variety of fruit and vegetables to the kickoff of the O Grows 2024 summer market.
Strawberries and peaches from Wesley Hale, owner of Hale Farms in Chilton County, Alabama, were a popular addition for the opening of the O Grows 2024 summer market.
Sean Forbes is a professor of educational psychology in Auburn’s College of Education and the executive director of O Grows.
Every now and then, a good idea succeeds. Opelika Grows (O Grows) is one of those good ideas — one that has brought together a community to share food, build knowledge and grow relationships. Through the years, this idea has flourished into a local food project where the theoretical meets the practical and people examine the root causes of food insecurity, nurture their neighborhoods and change lives.
From the beginning, O Grows in Opelika, Alabama, has focused on community, partnership and philanthropy — people helping people. Located at the intersection of two of the five most food insecure areas in Lee County, the project provides more than healthy food, it gives a community hope. In fact, thousands of people and families have found food, resources, education or other support at O Grows during the past year alone.
That’s the story of O Grows. And it all began more than 12 years ago when Sean Forbes planted a garden at his son’s school.
“My son was upset when he came home from school one day. He was sad that his first-grade class only spent five minutes outside that day,” he said. “We were already gardening together at home so that gave us an idea.”
Forbes, a professor of educational psychology in Auburn’s College of Education and the executive director of O Grows, partnered with his son’s school to establish the first of several garden programs — and the rest is agricultural history.
Today, O Grows demonstrates Auburn’s three pillars of research, instruction and outreach and has grown into a university-community food project with a 24/7, 365-days-a-year community garden and a state-certified farmers market — the only direct-to-consumer farmers market in Opelika. It also offers a summer market, youth and adult educational programs, demonstration workshops, and more.
Through these initiatives, O Grows provides experiential learning for Auburn’s teacher education students, practical instruction for elementary school students along with food and resources for families, and real-world research into a variety of issues from project-based learning to the impact of community partnerships on food insecurity.
“Our mission has adapted over the years,” Forbes said. “Initially, it was about giving local children experiential education, but today we know our curriculum does even more than educate, it’s also a proxy for what people have been doing since the beginning of time — building community. That can’t be manufactured or forced, but out here, it happens every day.”
