OUR COMMUNITY

Dig In is the shared work of people who live in and around Yancey County, North Carolina. The valleys, hollers, rivers, and fields here are part of the Black Mountain range of the Appalachian Mountains. Growing food for each other is a long tradition in these mountains. Cherokee people cultivated crops such as candy roaster and corn along the Cane River. White settlers grew vegetables to survive and sell to urban markets. Today, a little more than 18,000 people call Yancey County home. So many of these people are part of Dig In in different ways: cooking a meal with food grown in the garden, volunteering, attending community gatherings, and building partnerships that strengthen our community’s fabric.

OUR STAFF AND BOARD

STAFF

Kavita Hardy (she/her)
Executive Director
hardy@diginyancey.org

Kavita learned from a young age how growing and cooking food fosters belonging and love. The kitchen and gardens of her grandparents and parents were places filled with warmth, comfort, and joy. She first became passionate about food justice in college, where she worked alongside environmental justice organizers in Chester, PA to start a community garden, and then alongside farmers in rural India to generate resource maps for their panchayat governments. After graduating with a B.A. in Chemistry and Economics from Swarthmore College, she spent 11 years growing food in Yancey County at market gardens and as the farm manager at Arthur Morgan School, where she regularly shared produce with Dig In’s Food For All programs. Her favorite vegetable is okra.

Krista Slavik (she/her)
Garden Engagement Coordinator
krista@diginyancey.org

Krista is so happy to be a part of feeding locals with fresh, healthy and delectable produce in a connective way at Dig In! Yancey Community Garden. She has been growing farms, gardens, community, and biodiversity for nearly 20 years through education, her former edible and native plant landscaping business, her work at Carolina Native Nursery, and farms around the country and around the world. Krista also has a passion for singing, dancing, and building community through authentic relationships.

Olivia Ramos (she/her)
Communications Assistant
olivia@diginyancey.org

Olivia Ramos is a mother, gardener, fermenter, and community organizer in the South Toe valley. Her lifelong interests of sustainability and enjoying nature led her to the country life in Yancey County in 2016, where her first job after college was working in the Dig In gardens. When she’s not working behind the scenes at Dig In, you’ll find her parenting her two littles, planting trees, burning biochar, and selling fermented foods with her business Soil Shine Farm & Ferments.

Karen Hardy (she/her)
Garden Manager
karen@diginyancey.org

Karen is a student and lifelong learner of the natural environment, having education and work experience in botany, horticulture, landscape architecture, and farming. She most recently spent several years intensively homesteading in Mitchell County, returning to a passion that first developed when she worked at the Mountain Horticultural Crops Research and Extension Center. In addition to connecting to plants and the outdoors in different ways, Karen has over a decade of experience as a studio artist and instructor in printmaking and related crafts. Curiosity and a willingness to experiment are core elements in her approach to garden production at Dig In. She believes in the benefits of nutritious fresh food and cooperative effort, and values the opportunity to share the joy and bounty of working the land with the community.

Pat Thibodeaux (she/her)
Volunteer Flower Gardener

Pat is our dedicated flower gardener at Dig In. She started volunteering in 2012 and commits hundreds of hours in volunteer service creating and caring for flower beds, cutting and arranging hundreds of bouquets for people we serve every season. Hailing from Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Pat came to the mountains to make jewelry. The flower gardens she has created both at Dig In and at private homes are jewels of the mountains. Pat’s knowledge of native flowering plants is extensive, and she has an exceptional talent for growing a wide range of cut and ornamental flowers. Under her care, Dig In pollinator habitats are vibrant, adding to the vitality of the earth we steward.

BOARD OF DIRECTORS

Erika Schneider
Board President // Retired Communications Director, Sundance Power Systems

Rachel Kinard
Board Secretary // Climate Smart Coordinator, Working Landscapes

Eddie King
Board Treasurer // Purchasing/Planning, Glen Raven

Patricia Anderson
Physician, Bay Medical Center Sacred Heart Health System

Rachel Haimowitz
Owner, Healthy Plantet Homestead

John Hartom
Visual Artist & Retired Art Teacher, Co-founder of the Empty Bowls Project

Kelly Hollis
Global Head, Surveys and Observational Studies at RTI International

Laura Leco
Community Health Worker, Mountain Community Health Partnership

Camila Prada
Assistant Farm Manager, Healthy Plantet Homestead

Paige Scott
Manager, Little Creek Tree Farm & Retired Senior Vice President of Retail Banking, Central Bank

Felix Stith
Owner, Black Mountain Field and Forest

OUR PARTNERS

Dig In works with organizations, churches, and individuals to create a community food system in Yancey County that ensures fresh, local produce for everyone. We’re grateful to work with these partners in this work:

OUR HISTORY

Dig In began when two friends – both volunteers serving free meals – looked out over three acres of unused land belonging to one of them and said… “Gee – this field would be a great place for a Community Garden!” They called a community meeting in 2009 to see who might contribute to the idea and forty people showed up.

We broke ground in April 2010, and by June produce from the garden was being served in a local soup kitchen feeding almost 200 people each Monday. Since then, Dig In has grown under the care of volunteers, partners, staff, and a board of directors. In 2017, we moved the garden from its original ½ acre site to a new location we call the Blankenship Creek Garden. We grew from a single garden bed that first season to nearly an acre and half production of vegetables, flowers, and seeds in 2019. We now reach over 500 families making hard choices between healthy food and other necessities through food programs, pantries, educational activities, and Harvest Tables. We teach more than 300 people each season how to grow food sustainably, including local students and seasonal interns. And we create community networks to increase the capacity of our county to work together to provide healthy food with dignity for everyone.