Spring has sprung—and for one Burundian farmer, that means it’s time to get back to the garden

On a chilly morning in March, Haleith Hantungimana woke up before dawn at her home in Clarkston. She walked to the closest bus stop, where she waited “maybe 15 minutes or 20 minutes, something like that,” she said, until the bus came. Then Haleith rode it to the nearest MARTA station, where she hopped on the train and got off when she  reached Indian Creek in Stone Mountain. 

Emerging from the station, she walked to the edge of the parking lot. Her destination: a garden plot, where onions and cilantro are already starting to grow, and arugula has just been planted.

Her commute isn’t short, but farming, the 67-year-old said, keeps her active. “I love it because I use my hands,” she told 285 South, kneeling over the soil she’s been tilling over the last few weeks.

Haleith, who grew up farming in Burundi, comes to the garden site two or three times a week, depending on how much work there is to do. Though she’s only been farming at this particular plot for a few years, she’s been growing vegetables in Georgia for over 15 years.

She is among the over 200 farmers who garden at six different sites operated by the nonprofit Global Growers Network. In 2022, GGN launched a partnership with MARTA and established the Indian Creek site, part of a larger effort to make fresh produce more accessible in food-insecure areas—including areas with immigrant and refugee communities. Global Growers was founded many years before that; the seeds were planted in 2010 when Haleith and fellow Burundinians, as well as some people from Rwanda, Congo, and Tanzania, decided to “reclaim their agricultural heritage” by starting a community garden near the Avondale MARTA station. The original plot was called Umurima, which means “farm” in Kirundi, Burundi’s national language.  

The planting season has officially started, and this year, there are ten new growers who will be planting everything from mini carrots to Black Beauty eggplants to hibiscus. 

Also new this season: an initiative to address mounting food insecurity amid rising grocery costs: GGN plans to distribute up to $1,500 a week’s worth of produce, harvested by the program’s gardeners, to local shelters, food banks, and anyone in need, said Demetro Stephens, program manager for GGN. Growers will be compensated for their produce at fair market value, said Demetro, and they’ll continue to develop entrepreneurship skills to earn supplemental incomes. The project will launch this spring at the Indian Creek site, where a weekly farmers market also begins in June. 

Haleith resettled in Georgia in 2008 along with her husband, who’s 78, and their daughter. He’s been working at a chicken factory in Gainesville since the couple arrived. She thought at one point she would join him, but said the physical work was too demanding. This year, though, her daughter will be gardening too, and have her own plot. She’ll be prepared: Haleith has been teaching her how to farm for years.

Haleith surveyed the Indian Creek plot slowly, and then stopped, pulling out some cilantro leaves to take home. She said she’d make a smoothie with them.

Back in Burundi, she said, she had a “big, big garden” with “goats, chickens, cows.” She’s not sure what happened to it. “I don’t know because I moved.” She fled to Tanzania with her family, joining thousands of Burundians who had also escaped the political violence back home. 

Standing in the garden, with onions already growing high behind her, she said, “I miss my country. It’s my country.” Still, she added, Atlanta is “nice”—“no very cold, no very hot.”

Global Growers Network is hosting their annual fundraiser, A Meaningful Feast, on Saturday, April 25. You can get tickets here, and learn about volunteering opportunities here.