‘A learning tool’
Woman trades microscope for trowel
Kim Doughty went from hunching over a microscope in a sterile lab to getting her hands dirty digging in a garden.
Doughty, 29, is the newest Arkansas GardenCorps service member and oversees the Urban Farm Project at the Faulkner County Library in Conway.
“I’ve always had a garden in my backyard. My parents had a garden; my grandparents had a garden. I was always gardening on the sidelines, in my free time,” she said.
The Benton native earned a degree in biology from Arkansas Tech University in Russellville.
“I wanted to go into the medical field and do laboratory, research-type work,” she said. “I just always liked the thought of working in a lab. I used to think I wasn’t such a people person. I thought it would be cool to work in a lab and use all the instruments and a microscope.”
She did just that for about six years in the Arkansas Department of Health’s Public Health Laboratory in Little Rock.
Doughty tested food and water, as well as blood.
“I did a lot of blood typing,” she said. Doughty said the department got samples from health departments in individual counties, especially maternity patients. Doughty tested the blood to see if there were antibodies “that would interfere with the pregnancies or their new babies.” She also helped test for flu strains and the
West Nile virus.
She decided that even though it was fulfilling work, she didn’t like being inside all the time.
“I didn’t think it all the way through,” she said with a laugh.
Doughty volunteered in her spare time at farmers markets.
“The community was so inviting,” she said. “I was always kind of a healthy eater, conscious of where my food was coming from. It was so much fun that I wanted to have a job where I could be outside more and just educating the public about local food and the local-food movement.”
Doughty got a one-year apprenticeship at Little Rock Urban Farming. She met Arkansas GardenCorps service members, including Crystal Bowne, the previous service member at the Faulkner County Urban Farm Project in Conway.
“She, of course, loved it (the Arkansas GardenCorps) and had really great things to say about it,” Doughty said.
Arkansas GardenCorps is an AmeriCorps program hosted by the Childhood Obesity Prevention Research Program based at the Arkansas
Children’s Hospital Research Institute. The Urban Farm Project is sponsored by The Locals, a community organization that hosts pop-up farmers markets and works toward the goal of restaurants and corporations using locally grown food.
Bowne launched the Garden Club for kids ages 7 and older to teach them about gardening, where their food comes from and how to cultivate healthy habits.
Doughty said she is continuing the club.
“It’s cool teaching kids about gardening and letting them taste new things maybe they’ve never tasted before,” she said.
Sandra Leyva, executive director of The Locals, said Doughty is doing an excellent job.
“She’s great,” Leyva said. “She’s an artist as well as a gardener, so she’s been doing really neat signs for us,” Leyva said. “She’s been having nutrition classes during the Garden Club for the kids and having them try stuff from the garden.”
Bowne’s service-member stint was over in August, and $5,500 was raised to match Arkansas GardenCorps contributions to sponsor Doughty. Leyva said the Friends of the Faulkner County Library contributed, and fundraisers
were held.
Doughty moved to Conway from Little Rock to take the job. She is busy planning Saturday’s Urban Farm Festival, which is set for 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the library.
“I have actually been to quite a few in the past, so I’m excited I get to help plan one this year,” Doughty said. “We’re going to have just all kinds of crafts for kids and adults, too, and we’re going to have three local bands playing. We’re going to have a community potluck, which we have every year.”
A salad will be made from ingredients harvested from the Urban Farm Project, including kale (her favorite garden vegetable to use in smoothies), radishes and tomatoes. “We want to try to support other local farmers around the central-Arkansas area, so we’re going to be ordering from Conway Locally Grown, too,” she said, referring to the online farmers market.
“One of my main goals this year is to just kind of help the community become more aware of the garden. A lot of people don’t know there’s a garden behind the library,” she said. “I’m going to try to work on just signs and programs that bring the community into the garden. The garden is such a good learning tool. Urban
Farm Fest — that is a really good event that, hopefully, will bring the community out to the garden for them to see, wow, this is amazing.”
If it rains, the event will be held inside the library.
Doughty said the Urban Farm Project raised enough money a few years ago through the funding platform Kickstarter to purchase a 5,000-gallon rainwater-collection barrel, which is on the roof of the library. The rainwater is used to water the garden, but Doughty said more money is needed to install an irrigation system. It’s a project she’ll work on this year, she said, so that it can be in place next summer.
After her year as an Arkansas GardenCorps member is up, Doughty will need another job, but she doesn’t plan to go back to the lab.
“I’m sure I’ll still be working with local-food education,” she said. “It’s a lot of fun. Every day I get to do something new and get to be outside.”
For more information, email Doughty at faulknercountyurbanfarmproject@gmail.com, or call the library at (501) 327-7482.
Senior writer Tammy Keith can be reached at (501) 3270370 or tkeith@arkansasonline.com.