THOM 14 | Fall/Winter 2020

Innovator
It’s a Desert Out There
Thirty-two percent of Albany’s residents live
below the poverty line, the highest number of
any city in Georgia and almost three times the
national average of 13 percent, according to the
U.S. Census. When the south side’s only grocery
store closed several years ago, access to fresh
food was cut off for many people.
In 2016 the Flint River Soil and Water
Conservation District received a grant from the
National Association of Conservation Districts
for a pilot urban agricultural program in south
Albany. The next year, Jackson was hired as
coordinator. The project evolved into Flint River
Fresh, a 501(c)3 nonprofit, and Jackson became
executive director. It is becoming a model for
other communities not just in Georgia but
throughout the country.
Flint River Fresh still operates mostly in Albany,
which has set up teaching gardens at every
elementary school in Dougherty County, as well
as a pre-K and a couple of private schools. The
food is sold in pop-up markets, served in school
cafeterias and donated to area food banks.
The program also operates, on a smaller scale, in
all nine counties in the Flint River Basin: Baker,
Calhoun, Decatur, Dougherty, Early, Grady, Miller,
Mitchell and Seminole. In particular, Flint River
Fresh works with small farmers to get their crops
and products to market through the Farm-to-
Table box program; the Farm-to-Church, Farm-
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