Steve & Ernie

Meet Steve and Ernie, a pair of dedicated Cul2vate Champions who serve with joy and love. In this interview, they share their journey with Cul2vate, what they have learned about themselves and each other, and the meaning of community.

Steve

Hi. I’m Steve Simms, and this is my wife, Ernie, and we’ve been volunteering at Cul2vate. I first came to Cul2vate after walking at Ellington Ag Center for many, many years and noticing a farm, and we thought the farm was a part of Ellington Agriculture Center in the state of Tennessee. But then one day, they put up signs, and they said, Cul2vate with a number two in the site. And so I googled it and saw that they grew food, to give away, and that they also worked with people in recovery. So I sent an email in and told them that I had worked with people in recovery, and would they like a volunteer? And they said, “Sure, come and meet with us.” And so I was invited to come to a Monday morning meeting, and I thought they had said it was a board meeting, so I show up on Monday morning, thinking it’s going to be business people. And this guy, Josh, runs up, says, “Hi, you’re new”, and starts talking to me. And there are eventually about 20 people in there, and they all sit in a big circle and started talking about their love for Jesus, and everybody just shared things from their heart. And it was very moving. So I went back and told Ernie about it.

Ernie

Yeah, so Steve came and told me about it, and I was super busy at the time, and I said, I don’t really have time for anything else. Thank you. But I was walking around the farm, just because, you know, we have walked here for nearly 20 years. And so I run into Abby, who’s in charge of flowers, and she’s down by the fence, actually putting bouquets together, and they all look so lovely. And I said, Oh, your flowers look great. And we talked to her for a few minutes, and she goes, here, I’d like you to have some. And it so grabbed my heart. She just, you know, wanted to bless me that day. And so when I was walking on to our car, I ran into two or three people, and they would go, where did you get those flowers? And I told them about and they’re like, Oh, I can’t wait to go down there, you know. And I realized that’s the kind of thing that speaks to everybody. And at the same time, you know, Steve’s asking me to go to the meeting. And so after he came home the second time and said, You have to come to this meeting, then I said, Okay, well, I’ll give it a try, never imagining that I would fall in love with, Cul2vate, and so the first time was quite a surprise for me, and when I left, I said, Okay, that’s it. I’m in.

Ernie

So how did we grow as a couple through this? It’s really been, it’s been a really great experience for us to be able to come in together and have a shared mission and just fall in love with these guys and gals in the program, and to see them work so hard to grow. And you know, their hearts be so open, and they’ve been so willing to let us not only talk with them or just listen and to pray. And so we’ve done that with some people together, but it’s also lots of times during the week, especially during the summer, it would come to one of us, like we need to go out there these guys are hot and take them some Gatorade, or take them a snack, or take ice cream. And so it was fun just doing that together, because, you know, we just saw what a blessing that was for them and, yeah, that we were glad to see them. So it’s been fun to gather, to watch people grow, and it’s been very rewarding for us to share that

Steve

Yes, and the environment at Cul2vate has been such an open-hearted environment, where people love one another. There’s an assignment on the blackboard that says, show some love to one another, and that’s not just words. We especially saw that happening on the Monday morning meetings. It was such an open environment, people were willing to humble themselves and share their heart with one another, and that was really good, too, for our relationship. Just to, you know, to be in that kind of environment was very helpful.

Ernie

I’ve learned a lot about myself during this process, because I have always been drawn to being a leader, and if I don’t see a leader, I’ll step in and be a leader. And it was so good for me to come into a place that looks so healthy, it was running itself, and that I didn’t just have to step in and be a leader, but I could step in and be a part of what was going on, and just walk alongside other people who were doing a great job leading. And so even though it was humbling because I stepped into a structure and levels of it that I had to learn about and know how everything kind of worked, it was also like an act of obedience on my part, and because I worked with several teams, I worked in the store, in the retail store, at several different summers, and that was a wonderful experience. I learned to work under Jessica, who was an amazing leader, and also taught Bible study on Mondays with these great ladies who were sharing the gospel with the guys on one morning a week. And it was great to just be a part of a team that I didn’t have to lead, and just to see the joy and just being a good team member.

Steve

I was really inspired by the logo Cul2vate and the number two, and it means to grow people and to grow food. And I was really inspired by, you know, the way that Cul2vate raises food for the hungry and gives the majority of the food away, but also how focused they were on people and willing to listen to people and let people be vulnerable, let people open up their heart to one another and providing a safe environment. And that just showed me even more that people really do well when they’re loved and their input is invited. They’re not just spoken to or taught, but they’re invited to share where they are in their own lives, and that really has helped me grow. So what we found here at Cul2vate was community, and not just a formal community, like your neighborhood or you know people and you’re friendly, but this was a deep community that we discovered, and it’s, it’s very touching to find that kind of community where people truly are honest with each other, and you can see the love they have for each other. There’s freedom to express and listen to one another. And yeah, that was a fresh angle on community. For us, we have experienced a similar Christian community through the years, where people are free to share and not just follow a program, but the Monday morning meetings at Cul2vate were really special.

Ernie

I think for me, I became so aware that it’s not just the communities that was meeting together on certain times, certain mornings, it was the community that was out in the fields. It was the community with the volunteers. We had some neighbors move in next door to us who were refugees from Mexico and came in with two families between them, and they had absolutely nothing, and they moved in on the weekend, and we tried to help them out a little bit. They didn’t even have any place to lie down and sleep. And I came to Cul2vate like on a Monday morning, and I just started sharing the experience of having this family come in and that I had never seen that many children and adults together who had nothing, couldn’t bring anything with them. And the whole community here at Cul2vate was so moved by that and had such compassion that before the end of the day, the Cul2vators were bringing over fresh vegetables, fresh fruit. They were some people were going to get things. Actually, one of the the leaders here, volunteers, actually brought a new mattress that had happened to be in her garage. It was a great mattress, and this couple has slept on it the whole time. And at one point, I remember some of the Cul2vators even bringing deer meat and just some things that were kind of a luxury for them and so I remember at one point saying to them, okay, you guys have done enough. This family has so much they can’t fit anything else in, and that included Christmas presents for them that year. And that was a larger community. It wasn’t just about what happens here on the farm. It extended way beyond to a bigger community, and I know they touch lives all over the area, all over the city, and that really means a lot.

Steve

So, we really love Cul2vate and the impact it’s had on our lives and the lives of the cultivators. And if you would like to get involved, it’s a wonderful opportunity. There are many things you can do. The volunteer coordinator is Bev, and you can reach her at bev@cul2vate.org. And the 10-year anniversary is coming up in May, but I would encourage you to do what I did, just Google, Cul2vate, C, U, L, 2, V, A, T, E, and go to their web page. And there’s all sorts of opportunities you can see.

Ernie

And there’s so many things that, yeah, that you can do, even if you don’t feel like you can dig in the dirt and plant something. You can come out when it’s harvest time and help out, or just come help with flowers. I have several friends who came and did that at different times, and then I spent a lot of time in the in the store, the retail store where the fresh harvest is, usually on Saturday mornings for me, but it’s open usually three days, three mornings a week, and it was a wonderful experience. And I found myself getting so excited telling people who came in who didn’t know anything about Cul2vate, telling them the story and who all they’re helping because they give away so much of what they bring in that I would get so excited. They thought I worked there, but it was just so fun to see them get excited, and it was just so fun to sell the things that have just come out of the garden, just so fresh and are really great experience for the community to come in that store. So there’s so many opportunities, so many different ways to serve.