Our Vision

The Welcome Garden's vision is to welcome our new neighbors within a natural space offering community support, an opportunity to develop skills, and healing. We strive to become better stewards of the land by growing organic produce with regenerative farming practices. We pursue justice for those working in agriculture and seek to provide healthy food for low-income families. We encourage community members to volunteer in the garden and/or invest in our CSA shares to help support our new neighbors, make our project sustainable, and to grow this beloved community.

Our History

Vision Formation 2020-2022

Earth Day 2020 Anne has an epiphany at the Nashville Food Project's Grow Together Garden, where refugees grow and sell food through a CSA. Anne thought, "we could do that on our farm!"
Pandemic zooms with the Justice Salon, started by Francisco Garcia at St Augustine's chapel, bonds many of us who become part of the Welcome Garden team.
Connecting with Yuri Rodriguez, Costa Rican seminarian at Sewanee and St Augustine's intern provides inspiration and encouragement
Anne meets the Miranda sisters through retired missionary friend, Becky Couts, who had started an international women's group at Anne and Doug's former church.
Spring 2022, members of the Justice Salon meet with the Miranda sisters on our farm sharing the vision of starting a garden to support new neighbors

Beginning the Garden 2022-2023

Summer 2022, Rod Sprang helps Anne and Doug begin running pigs and chickens on a 3 acre pasture to prepare soil for the garden
August 2022, regenerative farmer Tim Kercheville comes to the farm for a consultation
The Welcome Garden team is growing. Chris and Jenny Hoskins are on board as interpreters, Dan Fernandez, Francisco Garcia and Anne meet with the CCJ board to get help towards becoming a nonprofit; Rod and Debbie Sprang, Doug and Tim are on board; Jeanneth Miranda and her daughter commit to help.
Fall 2022, Anne, Doug, and Rod plow and till the field. Our first organized work group comes to spread covercrop seed and fence in the 1 acre area around the garden site.
Turnips explode! We have fertile soil!
Winter 2022-23 Tim has proposed a plan and we are on board. We have another volunteer work group plant 4 hedgerows of fruit trees, raspberries and elderberries. We mulch them deeply with hay, wood chips and innoculate with mycelium mushrooms to accelerate their growth.
Hedgerows and deep mulching throughout the garden is our way of keeping the garden hydrated; no irrigation system needed.
We build a farm fence around the garden. Sammy, our new livestock guardian dog and 2 of our grown pigs run the garden perimeter protecting it from wildlife.
Miranda sisters share about the Garden within the community, and recruitment flyers for new neighbors are shared
Loads of hay and wood chips are delivered ongoingly

Our First Growing Season 2023

Planting begins in March and we begin working 2 days/week, 3 hours/day
Rod Sprang brings bees to the garden!
Earth Day in April 2023 we have a Welcome Garden Blessing with about 40 in attendance.
May 2023, the Welcome Garden becomes a nonprofit!
Tina Tsui joins our team followed shortly after by Anne Shepherd.
Our first harvest and CSA shares are distributed late May.
Second Harvest has agreed to partner with us and buys 10 shares which are shared with new neighbors and our friend, Jason Carney's African American church community. 10 full shares and almost 20 half shares are bought by the St As community. Leftover CSA shares are donated to Magdalen Houses.
Tim and the core team, several teens and several new neighbors work hard in the garden all summer every Thursday and Saturday distributing CSA shares at Vanderbilt every Sunday after church. Volunteer groups and individuals come help and visit throughout the season.
During this first growing season we have hosted several groups including 3 cottage dinner groups from St As, a large family group, St As youth group, a young adult group, a teen group from the Bethlehem Center, and our Justice Salon group, and the Southeastern Center for Cooperative Development reps.
December 16th we distribute our final CSA shares and the rest of our harvest of about 300 pounds was donated to the Madison Benevolence Center for tornado victims
This first season we harvested over 14,000 pounds of produce and about 6000 eggs
Winter 2023-24, we continue to harvest eggs and share with the Madison Benevolence Center

Our Team

Bert Bailey

Bert is the new President of the Welcome Garden board. He jumped in last fall after retiring from his career in business. Bert and his wife, Kim have been long term members at St Augustine's Chapel, and as old friends, connected Anne and Doug to this amazing community back in 2016. Bert is planning to help Tina with some of the Treasury responsibilities and is helping us with the business part of managing the Welcome Garden, drawing from his career experience.

Dan Fernandez

Dan Fernandez departed this life unexpectedly early February and will be sorely missed. Dan and I met virtually during the pandemic on Justice Salon zooms. As an Environmental lawyer he is passionate about eco justice and has gotten involved with TIPL, Tennessee Interfaith Power and Light. As a new transplant from Florida, moving to Nashville to be near his son, he showed up ready to be involved and spent countless hours helping to work with the CCJ and other legal helpers to get the Welcome Garden non profit status achievedDan spent his life before in Florida with a successful legal career teaching and working on environmental projects. His life will be celebrated at the Welcome Garden this April 2026 with family and friends.

Kate Fields

Kate Fields serves as a chaplain at St. Augustine's Episcopal. She is a biologist turned pastor and works with faith communities to become more invested in the local food system. She holds a Doctorate of Ministry in Land, Food and Faith Formation, a Masters of Divinity, and a MS and BS in biology. Kate was born and raised in Nashville and loves country music dearly, cooking and growing food and deepening community around the table.

Anne and Doug Hardin

Anne is director of the Welcome Garden and Doug is Anne's partner for life and and a great support person in this adventure. Anne was inspired by TIPL and The Nashville Food project's Grow Together Garden, and when she wanted to start a similar project on their farm using some inheritance to help get it started, Doug got on board. They both love bringing community out to the farm and sharing the blessing of the garden sanctuary to especially help new neighbors, but also volunteers, find stress relief and healing from the everyday burdens our poor planet and humanity are suffering from. Anne and Doug have lived on the farm for 30 years where they have raised 3 daughters. Their oldest daughter, Amy, and their 3 grandkids, Lily, Steven and Rose, and middle daughter, Chesney and her partner, Will, also live on the farm. Anne retired from nursing early to help with grandkids and the farm, and has been involved with TIPL and the Justice Salon since she and Doug joined St Augustines in 2016. Doug continues to work in the Vanderbilt Math Department and is currently contemplating when to retire as he approaches 40 years in his career in 2 years.

Chris and Jenny Hoskins

Chris and Jenny served for years in Ecuador with their two children. Chris is the outgoing president of the Welcome Garden board. Now that he has finished his phd in religion, psychology and culture at Vanderbilt, he is going to work at Saint Meinrad Seminary and School of Theology. Jenny will continue work virtually with their mission board they've worked with over recent years. With their accomplished Spanish language skills and heart for our Latino friends, Chris an Jenny have been instrumental in helping our new neighbor form into the Fertile Land Coop. Chris has told us St Meinrad wants them to start a Welcome Garden at their seminary!

Tim Kercheville

Tim is our regenerative farmer who has proved he can transform an empty field into a full fledged productive garden in one year at the Welcome Garden. Tim came highly recommended by David Wells with the Davidson County Soil and Water District where Anne has attended Farm Day workshops over the years. Raised by farmers in California and Kentucky, Tim comes to us with 14 years of farming experience and works with several other gardens and CSA's in middle Tennessee. He currently resides with Hidden Gem Farm in Springhill, Tennessee. Tim is truly a force of nature when it comes to farming and is a great encourager to all our new neighbors and volunteers at the Welcome Garden.

Jamie Mac Clanahan

Jamie is joining the Welcome Garden Board as Secretary for 2026. She came to the Welcome Garden in the spring of 2025 as part of her personal journey to learn how individuals can make a meaningful impact on the environmental crises we are facing. Her reading had led her to books by Josh Tickell (Kiss the Ground) and Wendell Berry, which taught her the power of regenerative farming to heal the soil and the climate, along with the importance of supporting local small producers. With no idea about how to do it, she dreamed of a regenerative garden operated by a faith community as a way of sharing God’s love with neighbors and creation, and she was thrilled to find out that a group of people were already doing this at The Welcome Garden! So, she began volunteering on Saturdays to learn and support the work. She is a lifelong resident of Nashville and a member of Sacrament Church, a parish in the Communion of Evangelical Episcopal Churches. She is married to Jesse, who teaches at Glencliff High School, and they have twin teenage boys, Sean and Nathan. She holds a Masters of Social Work and works in the field of child welfare, studying system dynamics and reform.

Rev. Yuriria (Yuri) Rodriguez

The Rev. Yuriria (Yuri) Rodríguez , is a native Costa Rican singer, artist, and educator, who specializes in Latin American music and culture.For 20+ years, Yuri has performed in, and conducted choirs of sacred and Latin American music in the United States.Through music, she has developed programs and curriculums to accompany diverse communities in their journeys of faith, affirm their sense of identity, and celebrate God incarnate with the immigrant communities in the US. Yuri describes herself as a priest with a passion for learning to be in liminal spaces: between English and Spanish, between Latino and US cultures, between tacos and BBQ.Yuri holds a master’s degree in divinity from Sewanee, University of the South.She also holds bachelor and master’s degrees in music from Indiana University- Jacobs School of Music.Yuri is a fellow in the 2024 Trinity Wallstreet Leadership Fellowship Cohort. As a priest, she also serves in various committees in the wider church community like the Standing Committee of Liturgy and Music, the Advisory Group on Church Planting and Revitalization, the Episcopal Women History Project, and the Editorial Committee of the new Spanish songbook of the Episcopal Church.Rev.Rodriguez is a mother to two girls(Mercedes, who is 17 yrs.old and Belén, who is 12 yrs.old).They moved to Nashville in the Summer of 2025.

Robert Spencer

Robert and his wife, Rebecca, initially signed up as Welcome Garden volunteers at the St Augustine's Episcopal Ministry Fair in 2025; and they have been regulars at the farm on Saturdays. Robert is an accountant and consultant in higher education, and he values the chance to work in the garden along with our new neighbors on weekends. He was attracted to the Welcome Garden's mission in part following his prior experience with a refugee resettlement charity in Nashville. Robert and Rebecca have been active in, and thankful for, the St Augustine's faith community since early 2025. They have four adult children who sometimes drop in to help at the farm when in Nashville. He serves as the Welcome Garden's treasurer.

Rod and Debbie Sprang

Rod Sprang is our ongoing farm consultant. He has been with us since the beginning helping us prepare the field with chickens and pigs, hiring Tim, plowing the earth, and bringing bees. He and his family come from Ohio and he and Debbie live just 3 miles as the crow flies from our farm. By trade Rod is a pharmaceutical rep, but he is also a “jack of all trades” and passionate about gardening and social justice he brings to the Welcome Garden and Justice Salon. Debbie is our inspired encourager. When she first heard about our project she said, “That’s the Holy Spirit at work!” She works at Belmont University in alumni relations, been part of the Justice Salon and a devoted Welcome Garden core team member. Debbie and Rod have 2 daughters who live locally and a son who works globally in humanitarian aid.

Tina Tsui

Tina and I first met out at the Welcome Garden and she was introduced to the Justice Salon by Brenda Huff. What a find she was! Tina has wholeheartedly thrown herself into the Welcome Garden and served as Treasurer for 2 years and is now our VP. Tina loves the WG community and really loves getting her hands in the dirt and spreading the good news about the Welcome Garden. Tina is passionate about her faith, growing organic produce and community and has plans to start another Welcome Garden in Monteagle when she retires from Vanderbilt.