On a recent Saturday, a group of volunteers gathers in a field in northern Durham, squinting against the wind, adjusting their hats and tightening their coats. They pull on their gloves and head into the woods, away from the clucks of chickens.
“There’s history in these trees,” volunteer Lilton Evans Jr. says later, gazing upward into the canopy of trees at Catawba Trail Farm.
The volunteers are here to put in a day’s work at the farm, a farm and educational center in northern Durham. These days, Catawba Trail Farm focuses on building skills of self-reliance through offering space for growing crops and teaching farming skills. Those lessons all take place on a site that was once part of one of North Carolina’s largest plantations.
Catawba Trail Farm is home to Urban Community AgriNomics (UCAN), a nonprofit organization founded in 2016 by Delphine Sellars and Lucille Patterson to provide North Durham residents access to fresh fruits and vegetables. A gravel trail leads to the heart of the program, the long rows of seedlings and greenery that make up the farm’s community garden.
Tucked into the 176-acre farm just west of the Little River, the community garden boasts 47 raised beds bursting with collard greens, tomatoes, potatoes, and other crops, which vary depending on the season. Some beds are tended by community members who rent the growing space and take home their harvest. Others are taken care of by UCAN staff, who donate the produce to people in need.
The farm hosts free produce giveaways once each month in partnership with Farmer Foodshare and Carolina Farm Stewardship Association. Community members who show up get a complimentary box of locally grown produce.
In addition to giving away produce, the farm’s green bucket program provides buckets, soil, fruits, and vegetables so people can grow their produce at home. The farm also hosts on-site farmer’s markets, selling produce and eggs from Catawba Trail Farm and other local farms.
For Sellars, who grew up on a vegetable farm in Washington, North Carolina, the farm is a continuation of her life’s work.
“I wouldn’t change my childhood, and my growing up, and my teenage years, and in that hot sun, and chopping, and all that kind of stuff growing vegetables” says Sellars.
Sellars moved to Durham to attend North Carolina Central University, becoming a first-generation college graduate. Despite her change in scenery, her connection to agriculture never faltered.
“It’s amazing how you come full circle, but everywhere I went, I always had a flower garden….” says Sellars. “And then, when I moved to Durham, I actually had a garden in my yard, and then, you know, through working with Durham County and being County Extension Director, it came back. I learned a lot.”
As the former Durham County community outreach coordinator and a former Durham County extension director, she learned a lot about what her community needs.
“So I saw people being given food, but it wasn’t given with kindness and compassion. I saw people being given things, but it wasn’t done with the dignity that they deserve simply because they were human beings.”
As they considered ideas for their organization, Sellars and Patterson asked how they could have a sustainable impact. Their answer: giving people space to grow their own food helps build resilience.
“And as they grow their food, they’re going to come together better as a community,” said Sellars. “As they grow their food, they’re going to come to appreciate one another. As they grow their food, they’re going to love themselves…
“So it builds up their human spirit, their human dignity. But also, once you know how to do something, nobody can take it away from you. Nobody.”
‘You Can Feel Peace’
The farm’s community isn’t limited by age, race, gender, or level of gardening interest. Zaetiah Collins helps lead youth programs in the farm’s youth community garden. On this Saturday, Collins lumbers through the mud to get more safety glasses for the volunteers. On Fridays or Saturdays, Collins often can be seen planting, painting, giving children tours, feeding chickens, and pulling children on the cart for a “trail ride.”
She started with Catawba Trail Farm in March 2024 while she was a North Carolina Central University student, drawn in part by the site’s history.
“[Farming] is where we originally came from,” says Collins. “I think it’s important for us to reclaim what once was originally something we did.”
The farm sits on part of the former Snow Hill Plantation, once one of North Carolina’s largest plantations, which was owned and operated by the Cameron family. The Triangle Land Conservancy transferred the 176-acre farm to UCAN in January 2024. It’s one of the biggest transfers of property to a Black-led nonprofit that has ever taken place in North Carolina, according to the conservancy.
And it’s continuing to change, notes Barbara Rumer, another volunteer.
“It looks a lot different than it did last year,” Rumer says as she bends down to grab a log. “Well, I guess it was two years ago.”
In the last two years, the Catawba Trail Farm has expanded its nature trail, increased its staff, renovated a mill house for use as an on-site office, grown its number of beehives, and added a high tunnel, a greenhouse-like structure covered in plastic that is used to extend fruit and vegetable growing seasons. The group has even released its own cookbook, “Recipes from Catawba Trail Farm.”
Today’s volunteers are clearing the way for still more growing space. Through the snarl of the chainsaws, a voice rings out: “Break time!” Rumer, Evans, Collins, and the rest of the volunteers trek through the mud back toward the looming, wooden house to gather around a fire.
The structure will eventually be turned into the farm’s “intergenerational house,” a hub for history, storytelling, farming, and community. At least that’s the hope.
Sellars’ dream is for the farm to be a lasting staple for the Durham community, “open to all people.”
“You can come out and you can hear stories at the intergenerational house….,” Sellars says. “You can walk to the trails, to the bank of the river…. You can walk through the woods.”
“You can feel peace.”
Above: Aniya Bourne, assistant director of content and marketing for Catawba Trail Farm, surveys the “high tunnel,” a greenhouse-like structure on the farm. Photo by Abigail Bromberger — The 9th Street Journal
Courtney Lucius
