As the sun beats down, 31-year-old Lin Lin sits in her garden picking off weeds.
You can hear her 2-year-old daughter in the background playing on the grassy hill with other kids. You can also hear other farmers, speaking different languages, tending to their land.
“The first time is hard work. Right now it’s OK,” she says with a laugh.
Lin Lin is hundreds of thousands of miles away from her home country of Burma. She, her husband and children escaped ethnic and religious persecution. They fled to the United States in 2009.
Lin Lin and her family escaped Burma. Now, she’s a first-year student learning how to farm outside Kansas City.
Now, she’s a student at a program called New Roots for Refugees. It’s a joint effort between Catholic Charities and Cultivate Kansas City. The program aims to teach the basics and business of farming to refugees over the course of four years.
“You can't really lead them, you can only talk and show,” says Sammie Davis, as he waters the students’ plants in the greenhouse.
Davis is the site manager at Juniper Gardens Training Facility, where each student is responsible for a quarter-acre plot. On their land they grow all sorts of vegetables - swiss char, radishes, lettuce, carrots, basil, peppers and broccoli to name a few.
Juniper Gardens Training Center is located right outside Kansas City. Here, refugee farmers grow a variety of vegetables to both sell and eat.
He shows 41 Action News Tu Rah’s garden. The fourth-year student is currently picking cilantro to sell at the farmer’s market.
“Everyone here grew in their home countries. Some had large farms, some speak that they had acres, 10 or 20 acres,” Davis says. “It’s very hard work, but it's love. If you don't love it, it's even harder. And loving it makes the hard work worth all the whole effort.”
Tu Rah is a fourth-year student in the New Roots for Refugees program. He’s preparing to sell cilantro at the farmer’s market this weekend.
Students like Lin Lin and Tu Rah spend up to 10 hours a day tending to their land. On Thursdays, they all gather for a group lesson. This week, they are discussing how to successfully market their produce.
“This is a place of hope and these people are hard-working people who believe in hope and who love the country,” says Alicia Ellingsworth, as she shows 41 Action News the garden.
Graduates of the program have gone one to start their own businesses. In three years, Lin Lin hopes to do exactly that.
“We are trying, you know,” she says with a laugh.
------
Ariel Rothfield can be reached at Ariel.Rothfield@KSHB.com.
