By CELESTE BAUMGARTNER
Ohio Correspondent SALEM, Ind. — Indiana now has a chapter of the Farmer Veteran Coalition (FVC). The group is about mobilizing veterans to feed America. ”Cultivating a new generation of farmers and food enthusiasts through the collaboration of farming and military communities,” its Facebook page said. Sara Creech, who grew up in the suburbs of Michigan, led the effort to organize the group. About 60 people attended the inaugural meeting at her farm. Creech was an Air Force surgery nurse from 2004 until 2007 and was deployed to Qatar 2005, 2006. She met her husband, Charles “Chuck” Creech, a 16-year Air Force pilot when they were both in the service. Then Chuck developed colon cancer. They moved to Texas for his treatment. To improve his chances of survival, the couple began investigating the food system. “We started going to the farmer’s market,” Sara said. “We started cooking our own meals, eating organic, and eventually fell in love with it. We started reading books and watching movies about farming.” Sadly, Chuck died in 2011. Sara wanted to get out of nursing, to do something that didn’t involve being around sickness. She and her sister, and family, bought a 43-acre farm and moved to Indiana in 2012. “I didn’t plan on farming but started planting fruit trees, berries, got some chickens, and that started everything,” Creech said. “ Every week we would go to Tractor Supply and buy more chickens or farm things. About a year later I went to a course for military veterans called Armed to Farm which is sustainable agriculture training for military veterans.” Creech enjoyed spending time with other veterans who were interested in farming. They learned about what kinds of opportunities were available and visited different kinds of farms. Creech decided she wanted to farm full time. “It just felt right,” she said. In the meantime, Creech’s sister had moved into a nearby small town, and her parents and grandparents moved to the farm. She does the farming and “cons them into helping me as much as I can,” she said. “We started a farm with chickens, eggs, and pasture poultry, got some sheep—I got started with bottle babies,” Creech said. “We have turkeys and ducks; we do vegetables and fruit and honey and maple syrup, lambs; we just got some beef cattle and a milk cow this year.” Creech began doing training programs on the farm for military veterans. She works with Purdue University with the AgrAbility program and with other farmer/veteran groups around the state. A friend from Armed to Farm told Creech about the FVC and suggested partnering with them to reach out to other veterans. Creech did some research and went to one of the FVC conferences. “One of our goals in the veteran training we’ve been doing is to partner with an organization that has a bigger outreach to connect with military veterans in Indiana who are either involved in farming or interested in farming,” Creech said. “We thought we could do this best by partnering with the FVC and contacted them about forming a local chapter.” The Indiana chapter and all local chapters work under the umbrella of the FVC in implementing its mission, Creech said. That mission is mobilizing veterans to feed America. Michael O’Gorman, FVC executive director, attended the launch of the Indiana chapter. “I am excited about the chapters,” he said. “When you start an organization, you dream that other people will carry it forward. I think that is what we’re seeing. Less than 1 percent of our population is serving in the military, and less than 1 percent grow our food. The men and women who intersect those two services and are touched by both of them, they’re a special breed, and they have a lot to offer each other.” FVC will soon have nine state chapters – Indiana, Kansas, Michigan, New York, Texas, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, and West Virginia – and 20 state partnerships with the Homegrown by Heroes label. For information on FVC visit www.farmvetco.org For information on the Indiana chapter visit www.facebook.com/fvcindiana |
