Volunteers partner to build garden beds and provide food for those in need
Published 12:10 am Wednesday, March 26, 2025
Green Raven Organics founder, Shamilla Roberts, standing, fourth from left, is surrounded by family and friends who joined to help with the build. – Karen Kistler
Dajan Watkins drives the tractor mower to transport the soil as Jeffery Roberts follows behind to help unload it. – Karen Kistler
Bags of organic soil were placed at each of the garden beds when they were constructed. — Karen Kistler
Volunteers work on unloading soil, nailing frames and placing plastic to help build the raised garden beds. – Karen Kistler
Volunteers, from left, Kemyon Oglesby, Yvette Brown and Brayden Reavis, construct one of the raised garden beds. – Karen Kistler
Aimee Mickel, manager at the Home Depot, measures between the raised garden beds. — Karen Kistler
Karen Kistler
karen.kistler@salisburypost.com
SALISBURY — The sounds of building could be heard as volunteers were busy constructing 20 raised garden beds on March 22 during the Hope GRO’s Here Volunteer Day, hosted by Green Raven Organics in Salisbury.
Partnering with Green Raven Organics to complete the project were volunteers from the Home Depot Foundation, veteran leaders and others from the community, with a goal of building the beds to provide fresh, healthy food for “people who need it the most, especially veterans and aging out of foster care youth,” said Shamilla Roberts, founder of Green Raven Organics.
This is the second annual volunteer day event that they have sponsored. Roberts said that last year their partner was other veteran-supporting organizations, and their project was to build a food garden at Home Again Foundation, partnering with Home Depot and Veterans Bridge Home, which is based out of Charlotte.
However, this year, she said, “I’m pivoting from having to find places to put food gardens to having them at my own farm. And the great news is we have partnered with Hearts and Hands Pantry that already serves veterans and aging out foster care youth. So these garden beds will feed veterans in the Salisbury community and Charlotte community and I’m so proud to be able to contribute to that.”
Approximately 15 volunteers from Home Depot were there including manager Aimee Mickel who said that the foundation is “dedicated to giving back to those who have served our country. Partnering with Green Raven Organics allows us to create sustainable solutions for food insecurity among veterans and their families. This initiative aligns with our mission to improve the lives of those who need it most.”
Sally Sebastyn, who is also a member of the Home Depot team, said that “Team Depot and our values are the best thing that our founders ever gave us at the Home Depot.”
Meme Woods, also a Home Depot volunteer, said she was asked by a co-worker if she wanted to volunteer, and with it being spring equinox, Woods said, “what better way to celebrate than to come out and build garden beds.”
Kemyon Oglesby and Brayden Reavis, students with North Rowan High School and members of the National Honor Society, were there lending support and helping in the build.
Oglesby said he decided to come to “help the community out,” and Reavis likewise said that this event “seemed like a good opportunity to help out.”
Gilbert Gonzales and Jeff Schwartz, veterans and friends of Roberts, returned this year to help and each noted that this is a great event.
“It’s great, what’s going on, what she’s doing for the veterans is awesome,” said Gonzales, and Schwartz added that “it’s just a great thing to be a part of.”
Yvette Brown, who was a volunteer from the community, said she decided to come to help the community, plus it provided an opportunity to learn how to make the raised beds.
As some were building the frames and lining them with plastic, others were moving the bags of organic soil, which would be placed inside the beds.
One such individual who was driving the small tractor to bring the bags of soil to the frames was Dajan Watkins, who said he wasn’t a North Carolina resident, but he heard about this event and came.
“I thought that it was the best way that community can come together,” he said. “People from different backgrounds, from different races, all come together for just the community and veterans, it shows that we still have good humans out there and it puts more faith into humanity. So it’s a great event, and I’m just so happy to be out here.”
Jeffery Roberts, husband of Shamilla and vice-president of the business, said that other volunteers who came out were from North Carolina A&T and from Salisbury High School.
“We have all walks of life,” he said, with a goal of getting the garden beds built with a plan of helping several pantries they partner with and therefore providing vegetables for those in need.
Seeing all these volunteers working together to get the garden beds built meant a lot to Shamilla, she said, adding that sometimes with nonprofits you have to build trust.
“The people here know me, and we’re going on year three of our nonprofit and I don’t ask for money,” she said.
The way that she funds the business is through the selling of her sourdough bread, which she makes and sells at the South End Farmers Market in Charlotte. She said for that weekend, she had made 120 loaves, and she sells out every weekend.
Shamilla also makes and sells sourdough scones, brown butter sourdough cookies and bagels.
Those that volunteer, Shamilla said, “believe in me. It feels so good to have people have my back. Yes, I’m the founder but it takes all of us, and I wouldn’t be able to do this without them. Especially Home Depot funding all the materials.”
The funding for the supplies for the volunteer day, Mickel said, came about through a grant that the Home Depot Foundation applied for and received and were therefore “able to achieve all the supplies through Home Depot through that grant.”
Shamilla said that the story behind how Green Raven Organics began goes back to when she entered foster care at six months and went to “the most wonderful woman in the world, named Ruby.”
She said that she and her sister, Shabraya Wiley were adopted together by Ruby Wiley, who she said showed her “what it meant to take care of the community, take care of others.”
When she turned 10, Ruby died of food-related diseases including high blood pressure and diabetes, “because we were poor,” she said. “We had lots of love, but we were poor.”
Shamilla said she didn’t have to go back into the system as she was able to stay with her brother, Bryan Smith, a veteran and who had nine children of his own, but he took both she and Shabraya in to live with them.
“He’s always been my hero, and he really taught me also what it means to take care of others,” she said.
He was at the event, supporting and working to get the garden beds constructed.
Shamilla said that she wanted to have clean food and decided to attend an organic growers store based outside of Asheville where she learned about growing organic foods.
At that time, they were living in an HOA and therefore had to grow in grow bags vertically, on top of pallets as they couldn’t have the raised garden beds and she couldn’t have chickens.
“But that didn’t stop me from pursuing and having a place to grow food and providing food for the community,” she said and it was at that time she started baking her sourdough bread, which she said is clean bread with only five ingredients or less, which “brought attention and awareness to food insecurity and how all economic backgrounds deserve healthy food.”
Jeffrey said he was previously driving a truck and on the road and “wanted to do something different, so this is where we’re at.”
Shamilla said that the 20 beds built that day was just the beginning as she has another area of tilled ground ready to use, plus they are anticipating a 3,000-foot greenhouse, which will provide year-round growing to provide food for the pantries.
And, she added, they have 27 baby chicks which should be ready in about four weeks to live in their home.
Future plans that she would love to see come about include a farm store where she can sell vegetables and the pastries she makes plus a place where people can learn about food preservation. And, she said, she would love to have a creamery, and yes, some cows.
“I have a deep passion for not only growing food but bridging the youth and community, but also teaching people how to grow their own food and prepare their own food.”
Noting that there’s a lot of negativity in the world today, Shamilla said she believes “we can get back to taking care of one another, no tit for tat, not I owe you, no cameras, let me show you what I did” but looking to others for strength and building community together.
And that, she said, is how she founded Green Raven Organics, “just a passion to bring people together and provide food for people who need it the most.”
