Sow Much Good: Robin Emmons

By Frosty Wooldridge

If you look back on your life, do you feel like you’re missing your “calling”?  Do you continue on a path that fails to inspire your heart, mind and body?   Do you find yourself going to work each day with an “uneasy feeling” on your shoulder?  At some point, have you asked yourself, “What am I doing here?”

(Robin Emmons)

Guess what?  If you walk down the wrong path toward your destiny, but keep walking, you will end up with your dissonant fate.  However, no matter what your age, you may turn around —and proceed in the direction that calls your heart.

Twenty years ago, Robin Emmons graduated from McColl Center for Visual Art’s Innovation Institute.  She continued with a degree from the University of North Carolina in Political Science.

Many of us get banged around on our journey toward our futures. Emmons woke up one day after 20 years in corporate America to ask, “What am I doing in this job?”  She quit.

After resigning from the financial industry, “One week after quitting, Emmons helped her brother find residence in a mental health facility; however, while being treated, he became unhealthy due to the consumption of canned and sugary foods. Robin, a gardener, donated produce to the facility and her brother’s physical health improved dramatically.”

From that point in 2008, Emmons found her passion – “I used food as a vehicle to promote social justice on important issues such as food access in marginalized communities.”

Today she advocates for healthy foods and nutrition.  She began as a gardener and now, farmer.  She dug up her entire backyard and sowed the seeds for the nonprofit: www.SowMuchGood.com.  She dedicated herself to eliminate systemic barriers in the food system that disproportionately affect the working poor and underserved populations.

Since the launch of Sow Much Good, Emmons works to “Raise awareness about inequities in the food system that eliminate the basic human right of a significant number of people to access clean, healthy food through workshops, farm stands and speaking opportunities.”

Emmons’ work arrives at a time when obesity dominates the children and adults of America. A mind-numbing 65 percent of Americans suffer obesity and 30 percent of that number explodes into gross obesity that you see on the television program: “Biggest Loser.”

(Robin Emmons working her garden.)

In May of this year, 2014, Emmons launched, “Farm Fresh To Go” It is available to those living in the communities & neighborhoods we serve who lack transportation or otherwise simply can’t make it to the market during regular operating hours. Weekly Farm Fresh To Go CSA shares are available for pick-up or delivery.  Delivery is available to individuals and families living well outside of the Urban Farm & Market footprint. Weekly pick-up is encouraged for residents living in the Beatties Ford, Sunset, Oakdale and Statesville Avenue neighborhoods, with special delivery consideration given to elderly and homebound customers.”  (She lives in Huntersville, North Carolina.)

In honor of her extraordinary work, TED Talks invited Robin Emmons to speak, “Wake Forest University Daring to Endeavor: Seeing Differently.”  She inspired, encouraged and enthralled a capacity audience.

In your life, what path do you walk?  More importantly, how good do you feel about it?  Are you walking in the right direction that fulfills your sense of purpose, your sense of humanity and your spiritual expansion?

Take a hint, take a clue and directional pointer from Robin Emmons to change your path at any age, any moment and for all the right reasons. Life’s energy pulled at Emmons; she answered.  Life’s energy tugs at your apron strings, it begs you to enter a new dimension in your life.  It calls your heart.

Like Robin Emmons, take courage and take a chance to fulfill your calling by walking down your life-path toward your chosen destiny.  Emmons sows much good because her essence flowers, blooms and grows.  Sow your own spiritual, mental and physical seeds into the universal law of the harvest.  www.SowMuchGood.com

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