A farm for everyone

Since 2018, UTRGV and the Edinburg First United Methodist Church have collaborated to turn a plot of land behind the church into the Hub of Prosperity, a farm dedicated to teaching people  how to cultivate crops.

Founder Alexis Racelis said about 10 to 30 volunteers visit the farm each week. The volunteers include athletes, student clubs and people who need volunteer hours for classes. 

“With volunteers, there’s no work, right? You come and you go as needed,” Racelis said. “We could have students helping us with things like weeding the plot or even planting or harvesting. For example, students today in a class that … they take, sustainable agriculture, which is ENVR 3305, they harvested potatoes. They harvested carrots. They planted okra. They planted jamaica, and they harvested seeds that we are going to be using in the next season, and they did that all within about two and a half hours.” 

The farm consists of five acres, of which two are planted, and UTRGV students are not the only ones growing food there. 

The Hub of Prosperity also works with other groups across the Rio Grande Valley. 

Families, students and Boy Scouts also occupy the community garden beds, according to UTRGV student Olivia Starkweather.

“They’re all planting different stuff,” Starkweather said. “And we just had, a few weekends ago, the planting day where everybody learned how to set up an irrigation system and how to plant crops properly spaced. So that’s been awesome.”

On top of mutually sharing a space with others from the community, the Hub of Prosperity also hosts a farmer’s market from 9 to 11 a.m. every Saturday to sell various vegetables, herbs and similar produce. 

More information can be found on its Facebook page, @hub.of.prosperity.

Racelis said the farm is a successful endeavor. 

“Its primary intention is to be a teaching and research facility for students at UTRGV interested in food and [agriculture],” he  said. “We’ve made a lot of progress in terms of converting it into … this living classroom. … It is one of the only kinds of that facility in the entire state where there is very clear student learning objectives tied to this facility.”

The Rider asked Program Manager Stephanie Kasper how the farm helps students.

“I think the Hub of Prosperity provides students a really cool opportunity to connect to the real world. The concepts that they’re learning in the classroom, we like to think of it as a living laboratory, a place where students can come out, get their hands dirty, [and] can feel what it’s like to plant a seed, to set up an irrigation line, to do all those steps that it takes to produce food. I think it really builds an appreciation for food and where it comes from and the hard work that farmers do to produce it every day.”