A journey to resiliency
Brittons Neck is a rural coastal town that has experienced devastation from past hurricanes, leading to water quality issues and severe flooding events which forced people to evacuate their homes, schools, and businesses. Although the small community took a major hit, local pastor and activist Reverend Leo Woodberry has blazed the trail for solutions that will have a major impact on the lives of the residents that call Brittons Neck home.
SCWF partnered with Rev. Woodberry and other partner organizations and helped kick-start an effort to plant 1,000 trees back in early 2022 to reduce the impacts of flooding. Read more about the tree-planting project here.
Later that year, SCWF staff, volunteers, and Brittons Neck residents gathered to install pollinator gardens at what would be the future site of the Environmental Justice Training Center. Read more about the garden installation here.
What was once an empty field is now a training grounds for residents of the brittons neck community
The 7.5 acre training center boasts a wide variety of demonstrations for visitors to model their own communities after. Eight hydropanels sit on-site which use solar energy to pull moisture from the air, providing clean water and irrigation for the surrounding gardens. A greenhouse will feature sustainable gardening practices that will produce fruits, vegetables, and flowers. Three raised garden beds full of plants for pollinators provide a source of food for bees, hummingbirds, and butterflies, which will in turn pollinate the surrounding crops and trees. A tree orchard also sits on the site, with fruit-producing trees that also help to soak up water and provide drainage during heavy rain storms.
In early 2023,
Construction of the first Environmental Justice Training Center in the south was completed, equipped with classrooms and meeting spaces to teach the community how to grow their own food sustainably and how to care for the environment they depend on.
On Earth Day,
SCWF attended the ribbon-cutting ceremony at the training center and heard inspiring speeches from Rev. Woodberry, community members, elected officials, and other partners. Watch the full ceremony here.
In November,
SCWF Habitat Education Manager Savannah Jordan taught the very first workshop at the training center, where community residents learned about how to create habitat for wildlife in their own yards. Attendees also learned how to create natural bird feeders from pine cones and and planted their own container gardens with plants for pollinators to use as a food source, as well as edible herbs for their own tables.
The training center has big plans for the future which aim to empower surrounding communities with the knowledge and skills to adapt to environmental issues that affect their livelihoods. Rev. Woodberry’s goal is for communities like Brittons Neck to go from “surviving to thriving in the 21st century”, an initiative we can all get behind as we learn to adapt to an ever-changing environment.
“When called to be stewards of the earth, we are called not only to take care of one another, but also the planet that we live on.”