Our History and the Story of Gibbs Road Farm
The story of this land does not begin with us. We are only the ones caring for it right now. These fourteen and a half acres are located on high ground three miles south of the Kaw River and eight miles southwest of its confluence with the Missouri River. We are still learning about the people from whom this land was stolen, but we do know that Indigenous people have lived in this part of the world now known as the Midwest and Kansas in particular for at least the past 12,000 years. (If you have better information or a correction, we welcome you to share.)
More than 2,000 years ago, this area was at the western edge of the Hopewell Exchange where hundreds of cultures lived in permanent villages connected by trade routes. These pre-Columbian Indigenous peoples created art from copper, silver, freshwater pearls, Grizzly bear teeth, and fish bones; they made pottery, built earthworks, grew food here, and managed the buffalo herds. The Hopewell Exchange stretched from present-day Kansas to New York and the Great Lakes to Florida. Thirty sites around Kansas City document the Hopewell Exchange and its people here. Later, from the 1600s to the early 1800s, the Arapaho, Cheyenne, Comanche, Kansa, Kiowa, Osage, Pawnee, and Wichita people were among those who lived on the land where this farm sits. They grew food, managed the buffalo, and made art.
As European settlers began moving to the continent, Indigenous people began to be displaced. In the early 1800s, the Delaware people were the first tribe to sign a treaty with the U.S. government agreeing to move west. Once here, the promises were broken and neither land was given nor money was paid, and the Delaware people settled near the confluence of the Kaw and Missouri Rivers and grew a community just a mile uphill from that spot in the center of present-day downtown Kansas City, Kansas.
After 1830, the demand for land by white settlers grew. Thirty tribes from Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, Ohio, and Georgia were promised money and land in this area and they moved west, but finding neither, many negotiated with the Delaware and purchased land along Jersey Creek in 1843. Among these tribes were the Cherokee, Chippewa, Iowa, Iroquois, Kaskaskia, Kickapoo, Munsee, Miami, Ottawa, Peoria, Piankashaw, Potawatomi, Quapaw, Sac and Fox, Shawnee, Stockbridge, Wea, and Wyandot. These displaced people were assured by the federal government that they would not be moved again however when the Kansas Territory was opened for white settlers in 1854, native people were moved further west. (Much of the above information has been sourced from the collection of information at https://www.wyandot.org/index_outline.htm#history and https://www.wyandot.org/wyandotKS/our-story/ )
We try to honor the people who walked here before us by acknowledging these truths, the wrong-doings of our ancestors, and our own shortcomings, as we take action to make amends. As we learn more about this land we love, we remember those who came before us. We are grateful for friends at Kansas City Indian Center who have shared their knowledge and guided us, especially Ed Smith.
Present-day memories of this land go back to Don Wise when he used his credit card to purchase the three-acre property in the late 1980s. At that time, Don was the Executive Director of Associated Youth Services and began to use the greenhouse for entrepreneurial school-to-work programming for youth who needed an opportunity. He pulled together The Power Plant, a successful job skills training endeavor, and produced cut flowers, holiday wreaths, and spring’s first potted clover.
In the mid-1990s, Wichita-native, Katherine Kelly returned from farming in the Twin Cities and on the East Coast and made a deal with Don to trade teaching for access to the field. Katherine started Full Circle Farm and applied for organic certification in 1998. At the Barstow Farmers Market, Katherine met Daniel Dermitzel, and together, they founded the Kansas City Center for Urban Agriculture (affectionately known as KCCUA) in 2005 and began to build a movement. (The organization was rebranded in 2012 as Cultivate Kansas City.)
Alicia Ellingsworth joined the effort in 2009 as farm manager arriving from the White Violet Center for Eco-Justice in Saint Mary-of-the-Woods, Indiana where she worked with her mentor, Mark Trela, and the Sisters of Providence. Alicia ran Gibbs Road Farm for six years utilizing six high tunnels for year-round production and consistently produced 20,000+ pounds of produce annually. In those days, the goal was to prove a living could be made from an acre in the city; and annual sales during that period topped out at $135,000. Alicia switched gears in 2015 to work mentor the New Roots for Refugees farmers at Juniper Gardens Training Farm, then left Cultivate KC in 2016.
Matthew Kost (now of Buffalo Seed Company) and Josh Smith managed production and stewarded the land until Cultivate KC closed Gibbs Road Farm in early 2018 to focus their effort at Westport Commons Farm in Kansas City, Missouri.
Upon learning of the farm’s impending closure, Alicia experienced a visceral pull back to the land, put energy toward it, and invited many to think about what might grow again here, and the path back to Gibbs Road began to unfold.
There was a need and a growing demand to get children outside in the natural world and grow some food. Alicia’s experience previously on the land told her that it was a place where good grows and hope lives. She reached out to Lauren Paul who had recently inherited the land from her father, Jess Paul. The conversation began and soon included Jess’s sister, Nancy and her husband, Paul Nance. In those days, dreams were shared and the interconnectedness of the years gone by, the present, and the future was soon realized.
That May, at the invitation of Turner School District’s assistant superintendent, Joy Engel, Alicia along with friend and advisor Chef Michael Foust of The Farmhouse KC found themselves sitting at a table with an old farm friend and high school science teacher, Jennifer Thomas. Seventeen-year veteran teacher, Jennifer had been implementing award-winning sustainability programming that included starting the school’s raised bed gardens, building an accessible trail through the woods at the high school, developing a school-wide food waste collection and composting program, Turner’s sustainability track, and having been nominated as Kansas Teacher of the Year twice.
After that encouraging meeting, the three kept imagining the possibilities for youth that could be put into action on the recently vacated Gibbs Road Farm. Dreams were shared and hope was energized as Jennifer jumped on board, and our story picked up speed. Our mission to empower individuals through on-farm hands-on experiences and vocational education connecting them to the land and soil, food, community, and opportunity emerged easily that summer. The vision included seeing the farm as the center of the community where multi-generational, participatory, and collaborative food projects happen.
Toward the mission and that vision, Alicia and Jennifer signed a lease in December 2018, formed a board of directors, and submitted the application for non-profit status. Jennifer stepped into the role of Board Chair. Our other founding board members were Lydia Nebel, vice-chair, Julia Thomas, secretary, Jill Elmers, treasurer, and Eleni Pliakoni. Alicia became our Executive Director. Don Wise returned as mentor.
The first staff members and volunteers found their way to the farm- Catherine Sercer on winter break from managing Pat and Rachel’s Gardens, Colleen Katz, Jessica Roger, and Margaret Del Debbio joined Alicia and began to build the farm from scratch. We held an open house in the greenhouse and invited the market growers who use the greenhouse each January-April to return. Farm Director, Sharon Autry and Programs Director, Melinda Dillon arrived in February 2019 and together began to rebuild the community that had once thrived at Gibbs Road. We began to invite school districts to the farm to experience #onfarmhandson work beginning with Turner USD #202, and Community School #1 picked up the weekly educational trips that they had begun back in 2010. We brought on new board members Sarah Dehart-Faltico, Karen Greenwood, and Jeff McDaniel that June.
Ban Nar Tu, Ricky Bishop, Viviana Sanchez, and La Nya Meade were our first summer farm crew. Dani Loma-Jasso joined us as our organizational development intern in August. Friends of the farm, committee members and volunteers have made the effort possible, and we owe gratitude to Jon and Lynne Beaver, Dave Bennett, Amanda Lindahl, Rebecca Miller, Jacob Chapman, Marcus Flores, Patti and Brent Ragsdale, David Dods, Brad Stowe, Michele and Jim Stowers, and Loretta Craig, all who were crucial to our early growth. In that first year, we clocked 5500 volunteer hours, 2500 hours of job skills training, grew a twenty-member CSA, held a weekly on-farm market May through October, hosted field trips, day camps, and workshops, and threw our first farmraiser.
We started 2020 excited to bring the whole field back into production and re-establish the farm as a Growing Growers Kansas City apprentice host farm, expand our education program, launch a farm camp, and expand our farmers market. We pitched our plans to our growing group of supporters at Leap into Spring, a beautiful greenhouse dinner event on February 29, and the future looked so bright. Then COVID-19. We took a breath, regrouped, and rethought everything we had planned. We created an online store for our spring transplants, for farm camp, and even for our market. We began looking more deeply for ways to serve the community. Because people were scared and wanted to learn to grow their own food, we created Let’s Grow Wyandotte, and it has become a tight group of urban growers growing food and community. We extended summer camp to eight weeks and offered it online for free. We started a YouTube channel and feature many community partners and friends.
Our 2020 field crew joined and began developing their own place in the KC ag community. Leading the crew was Jay Jadick, and farm crew members Paloma Gustafson-Ika, Sam Gray, interns Ross Unruh, Erika Westphal, and Jill Kelley grew food for our fifty-member CSA, our market, and for gleaning. Ani Kinney joined as Visitor Coordinator. We added six new board members; friends and supporters who had been with us since before our beginning: Marcus Flores, Karan Gupta, Daniel Robinson, Cydney Ross, Lacy Stephens, and Don Wise. That fall in response to the pandemic and in an effort to encourage movement forward, we held an online education event with 30+ local and national speakers. We called the conference, Let’s Grow! It Starts Here, Now.
That same fall, Steve and Liz Shelledy offered us the opportunity to purchase eleven acres of raw, rolling land adjacent to the east across 42nd Street from our beloved farm site at less than half its market value, and our board of members voted unanimously to move forward and attain the property. On December 16, we signed the contract and the deal was made. We are thrilled to begin dreaming on Common Ground, land we always believed was just beyond our reach.
Wanting to work with the life that was already on the land, we pledged to walk it 100 times before digging a hole; so besides using a small portion near the road for occasional parking, we have not altered it. Our Eco Team and community members have joined our staff to uncover the history of that land including the story of the Argentine Mine system beneath it. We’ve gathered neighborhood stories and Julia Vering gifted artwork associated with the mines beneath the surface.
In 2021, Daniel Robinson moved from our board of directors to staff to manage the farm in response to Sharon Autry’s departure to explore her dreams by starting Herdsman House Farm in Miami County, Kansas. That spring apprentice farmers Karley Kindberg, Mallory Millette, and Bayu Wilson joined our team, and in July, Lydia Nebel returned as Farm Director. Lydia had apprenticed with Alicia in 2013 and 2014, then gathered experience in no-till production as she traveled from Harlem Grown in NYC, Second Wind CSA in upstate NY, across Europe, Africa, Asia, and landing at Day’s Walk Farm in Melbourne, Australia. Lydia was voted President of the Young Farmers Coalition of Kansas City and with that will organize with this city’s aspiring farmers and guide us toward a more regenerative future.
We grew our on-farm farmers market to include several regular vendors who quickly became friends including Dona Fina Cafe, Juiceez KC, Spicy Mama’s Salsa, Glory Estates, and Moose Paw Farms. At our farmers market, we accept SNAP and match with Double Up Food Bucks. All our food and programming is always pay-what-you’re-able because we know that when we all share what we have, we all have what we need.
Eco Team members produced our 60-page Sustainability Action Plan pulling on their professional expertise to document the farm, how we endeavor to improve, and how others might follow our lead. The team is currently tirelessly researching the undermine of this hilltop to understand on what we walk and how we may interact on the land going forward. Eco Team members are led by chair, Dave Bennett, David Dods, Cherie Smith, Brent Ragsdale, Karan Gupta, Lee Gum, Marcus Flores, Marty Kraft, Loretta Craig, and Alicia Ellingsworth.
Our education curriculum was strengthened and the Jr. Growers farm camp was implemented by several individuals including Olivia Moore, Ari Fish, Hoku Melim, and David Carter. Let’s Grow Wyandotte members hosted their very first Let’s Grow Wyandotte Garden Tour with six gardens highlighted and shared. Then, in October, we held our very first Fall Fest. It was our first event on Common Ground and fittingly, it brought together our community to celebrate the land, each other, and food with art, music, bouncy houses, puppet-making, storytelling, farm tours, and more. Over 400 people descended on what was once considered wasted land joining us in bringing love and life back to it and realizing the power of being together and sharing a common dream. It was our first Fall Fest, but not our last.
We welcomed new board members to the organization in December 2021. Makayla Hancock-Harris, Hugo Cabrera, Vince Paredes, and Tom Alonzo stepped forward to help us reach our mission and goals going forward. We have committed to bringing on new board members who represent the community we are serving, who are advocates and activists in their own right, and who have each previously dedicated time and energy to the organization’s endeavors before coming on as our guides. As such, Karan Gupta answered our invitation to step forward as our second board chair, and Lacy Stephens, Don Wise, and Makayla Harris joined Karan in board leadership positions.
New staff and crew joined us for the summer of 2022 including Sydney Hunter, Morgan Murphy, Elizabeth Grantham, Moses Stratton, Mollie Caffey, Mikki Xiong, Kay Thomason, Makayla Brown, Maureen O’Brien, and Karley Kindberg returned. We launched our first summer intensive youth apprenticeship, Farmers on the Rise. It provided thirteen area youths a paid first job experience and the opportunity to try-on farming as a career.
A new crop of dedicated volunteers emerged including Paula Richardson, Carlos Garza, Cotton Sivils, Leanna Dishman, Will Holtorf, Jane McCoy, Carolee Dorsey, and Tom Melia; their coming weekly has meant so much to our efforts. Several Let’s Grow Wyandotte members have stepped forward into leadership positions including Max Dorsey, Kolika Simmons, Susanne Mahoney, Sheldon Harris, and Helen Hokanson. These folx support staff in providing mentorship and guidance to new members.
We deepened our relationship with Don and Loretta Craig and began co-managing their twenty-acre Leavenworth County, Prairie Garden Farm. Our goal was to better understand the intricate and delicate interpersonal relationships between retiring and emerging farmers who share land, how to manage the business and the self, and how to walk forward together knowing each party gives, and gains so much as we grow the knowledge, sharing the work and the harvest.
The Fall of 2022 brought much success in terms of grant writing. We were awarded three USDA grants including one to add infrastructure and programming at Common Ground, another to build out our education curriculum, and to pull together a Wyandotte County Farmers Market coalition. These grants allowed us to invite more year-round, full-time staff onto the team. Elina Jurado, a now-local KC artist hailing from Miami, joined to lead our farmers market growth, Kira Kirk from Columbia, Missouri, led our education team, Anna Arnot joined as farm manager, Nettie Zan came on to lead Farmers on the Rise apprentices.
Year five was filled with learning more about the land at Common Ground, about the undermined area beneath this Wyandotte County hilltop in order to best steward it. Crew members in 2023 were Erika Bush, Cameron DeFries, Serafin Mejia, Emily Youngbred, and Carolyn Tragasz. We developed relationships that regenerated the community and strengthened this organization that lives within the rich ecosystem of this region. These relationships vary from providing farm crew support to partner farms to growing the next layer of commitment from our Let’s Grow Wyandotte veteran members to joining a committee, and beyond. We also set our intention to provide a fair benefits package for our staff.
In late 2023, we were awarded another USDA grant to develop the KC FARMERS Coalition in collaboration with the Kansas City Black Urban Growers. Together with six backbone members including farmers at Moose Paw Farm, Pearl Family Farm, Sankara Farm, Grasshopper Urban Farm, the Garden at Dogwood Forest, and The Toolbox KC, we are rebuilding ag communities both urban and rural, facilitating established farmers mentorship of emerging growers, as we seek to preserve precious farmland for generations to come. Ashley Bath joined our team to coordinate the actions the coalition, and Micah-Mishal Quinn, Janelle Crawford-Hine, and Edith Blakeney joined as farm educators.
We welcome Sandra Machin-Suarez, Mary Touch, and Jeff Box to our team in 2024, in addition to Growing Growers apprentice Amy Gordon Ames. Farm crew are graduates of our Farmers on the Rise apprenticeship including Serafin Mejia, Gabe Diaz, and Esmeralda Rosales. Our board of directors has expanded again as we bring on Mike Hursey, Karen Baddeley, Mike Pearl, Tamara Falicov, and Jimmy Fickbohm. We’re excited for 2024. Alicia is back in the field this year, growing food, and growing new farmers! So much good growing.
The work happening now at KC Farm School at Gibbs Road is the product of many hands and much energy over innumerable years. We are grateful for this rich history and grateful to know the names of some of those who have created it. We work to honor the past while creating a future where individuals are empowered #onfarmhandson.
View our practices here.