***

sewanee’s first-ever harvest hootenanny started as a simple idea, then ballooned in size to involve more than 200 participants. the event sought to cultivate community, particularly between the students and employees eating local food in mcclurg dining hall, the farmers growing that food, and the mcclurg staff members preparing it.

“ann robinson (c’19) from the farm club and greenhouse had reached out to me. she wanted some help to do some kind of engagement piece with a farmer and student mix,” explained caroline thompson, senior cook in mcclurg dining hall. “we started with the contra dance idea and it ballooned into this huge event.”

thompson expressed that, although sewanee invests close to one million dollars in the local food economy every year, there is nonetheless a disconnect between students, farmers, and mcclurg staff members that each participate in this economy.

“and,” said thompson, “if we can provide that background of just meeting a farmer and what their life is like, i think we can spur even more conversations about changing big agriculture. that’s pretty idealistic — but i think there is movement in getting people in the same room and just being together and sparking conversations between groups that don’t generally mix.”

the event also sought to highlight the value of locally sourced food. in fact, it was the inspiration for the event.

“last spring i had talked to chef rick [the director of sewanee dining], and emmet logsdon, who is the owner of lost cove bison farm. and they were talking about how if we want to advocate for local foods it needs to be like coming from the students. so then i was like, okay, we should actually try and do an event,” said robinson.

robinson, a natural resources major and former work-study at the university farm, expressed that an event like this, focused on locally sourced food, would have to include a community aspect.

“i think environmentalism and community overlap and sustain one another, because i think if you have a strong human community, that allows you to extend your scope to the non-human community — or the environmental community,” she said.

robinson’s ideas about community and sustainability shaped the creation of the harvest hootenanny. after reaching out to thompson, robinson began brainstorming with her on what an event that involved both local farmers and students might look like. thompson explained that they wanted to be creative and depart from a typical farmer/student mixer model of just talking at a table.

that’s where the contra dance idea came in. contra dance is a type of dance composed of long lines of couples who move according to the caller. sewanee once held contra dances regularly, but nostalgia was hardly the only motivating factor behind putting together the contra dance. dancing was part of thompson and robinson’s aims of facilitating the mixing of different groups; not just farmer and student groups, but also divides between age groups.

robinson expressed her excitement about the intergenerational nature of the event. “you had all ranges of adults from their early 20s to like 80-year-olds coming through, and i was like, ‘i want this to happen more often.’ for people to be mingling in that manner, not just 20-year-olds surrounded by 20-year-olds all of the time.”

sewanee dining, the office of environmental stewardship and sustainability, sustain sewanee, greenhouse, farm club, university farm, the socially conscious investment club, swing that thing, perpetual motion, the community engagement house, and healthy hut all partnered together to help make the harvest hootenanny a success.

***

sewanee’s first-ever harvest hootenanny was much more complex than it ostensibly seems. it collapsed the distance between unlike communities and brought them under the same roof for a night full of laughter, dancing, and fun. it synthesized goals of overcoming decades-old ‘town versus gown’ resentments and age differences; it stimulated conversations about big agriculture and locally-grown food. and, it made a statement: sewanee students care about and want more locally-sourced foods. best of all — it was through food that harvest hootenanny accomplished these things.

“i think that’s why this event, in particular, was so great to me,” concluded robinson. “it combined a lot of those elements: trying to be appreciative and acknowledge that there is a local community that sustains us and a local environment that sustains us. but it was also about feeding people and getting people to connect.”

reflecting on the event, robinson said: “it was great — it was freaking great. when everybody was there eating together and i saw all of the tables full of people,” she paused and jokingly fist pumped, “i was like ‘oh my god, we did it!’”

in two such enclaves, dancing fern road in marion county, and keith springs, obtaining tap water has been a decades-long battle. because of their rural location, and because many of the individuals who comprise these communities have meager monetary means, creating water infrastructure is much less economically feasible than it might be in other communities. but they face another challenge independent of their financial ability or rural situation: they live in the mountains.

the rock formations which typify the cumberland plateau (where these communities are situated), as ben beavers, general manager of the sewanee utility district (sud) explains, are not water bearing. to drill a well requires drilling two to four-hundred feet deep.

in the absence of easy solutions to the challenges that these communities face, haley tucker, a senior sustainability fellow at sewanee committed to environmental justice, has made it her aim to document and collect not only water samples but also stories and injustices, that communities local to sewanee face.

“i hope that by documenting and interviewing the trials that these rural community members face, i can bring their stories into public attention,” said tucker. “it is unacceptable that hundreds of families near sewanee and chattanooga don’t have access to clean water — but i trust in the power of storytelling as a way to motivate change, and that is what my sustainability fellow project is all about.”

***

“the story is that an e. coli contamination was the impetus for getting the people living near jumpoff road their water,” explained beavers. jumpoff road was a site near sewanee without access to water, and this was in the early 1980s, a decade after the formation of the epa. the sud was spending money it didn’t have. the sud went bankrupt until, years later, they raised rates by 80% and began charging jumpoff road residents a surcharge.

“as a resident of jumpoff, i think it was a great idea [to put in the jumpoff road infrastructure]. as a financial investment, it doesn’t make any sense. but the sud isn’t exactly a business. so sometimes if we can afford to, we need to do things that are in the public benefit as long as they don’t bankrupt the utility.”

jumpoff road is a useful corollary to dancing fern road and keith springs — all three share similar financial, geographical, and geological challenges. but while jumpoff road is only a few miles removed from sewanee, keith springs and dancing fern road are both over 20 miles removed.

***

“we will never get water to this neighborhood during your lifetime” — this is, according to dancing fern road resident jan upton, what tennessee american water company representatives told her during a meeting she arranged with them and the mayor of jasper. dancing fern road is located on the cusp of the boundary to where tennessee american water company, the company who chattanooga contracts for their water infrastructure, should be supplying water.

upton, determined to obtain water, hired a well digger who built a well over 600 feet deep, at a $9,000 price tag. upton was dismayed to find the well provided “black, thick, sulfur-smelling water” to her home. she called the well digger she hired; he threatened to sue her; she let it go. she voiced her concerns unflinchingly in community-wide forums, and finally got water. yet, before long, upton was told her pipes had a leak and that it was her responsibility to fix it. she watched, frustratedly, as a new wealthy community developed across the highway and obtained water easily with their plentiful financial means.

and finally, upton simply gave up.

“she is now three months without water. she’s been forced to pump water from a local spring on her father’s land a half mile away. it’s the best situation she has had since moving there, but as local spring water, it’s not very safe,” explained tucker. ben beavers echoed the safety risk of local spring water; he stated in his interview that local springs around the cumberland plateau have been documented as fecal or e. coli positive, and often full of iron due to surface influence.

upton’s story, tucker stresses, is not an outlier, but an exemplar of the challenges residents in dancing fern road and keith springs face: a series of challenges so overwhelming that it is seemingly impossible not to give up.

“we individually interviewed about ten people in keith springs,” stated tucker, “and when we asked them if they had city water, literally every one laughed. every one.”

these are just some of many stories of those who do not have access to clean, or any, tap water; the stories of those who, when they attempt to overcome their intimidating series of challenges, were left with no option but to give up and to lose all hope.

“these are underserved communities who already face innumerable challenges. marion and franklin county, where dancing fern road and keith springs are respectively located, are adjacent to grundy county, the poorest county in tennessee,” remarked tucker. only 11 percent of grundy county’s denizens go on to obtain a bachelor’s degree or higher. “the last thing that these communities should have to devote energy, time, and resources to is obtaining safe water for themselves and their families.”

***

for the residents of these communities, and for all of us, these challenges seem altogether unsurpassable. but tucker is hopeful that, through devoting her own time and energy to sharing the stories of these communities, she can help to serve people and families who deserve, like any without clean water, one of their most basic human needs to be met.

bibliography

“u.s. census bureau quickfacts: grundy county, tennessee.” census bureau quickfacts, united states census bureau, www.census.gov/quickfacts/grundycountytennessee.