DONIE – NRG Dewey Prairie Garden consumes one acre in the middle of a 35,000-acre former mine in Jewett. It has yielded about 10,000 pounds of produce for six food pantries since it began harvesting in April 2022.
Texan by Nature, the organization that manages the garden, estimates it has served approximately 2,000 people per month in Limestone, Freestone, and Leon Counties.
About 16 miles from the garden, volunteers deliver zucchini, kale and other produce to a food pantry in Buffalo, a town of about 1,700 where residents have few grocery store options.
There’s a limit on how much each customer can take depending on the size of their household, but everything is free.
The Surface Mining and Reclamation division was created in 1977 to enforce new regulations for cleaning up old mines and restoring the surrounding land to its prior condition. NRG was granted $112 million for the cleanup of the field in 1986, even though the mine was still operating at the time.
Since then, they have replanted 3,500 acres with native grasses, created 700 acres of wetlands and have fully reclaimed 5,590 acres at the mine.