Turn Around Columbus’s initiatives prioritize high need communities and areas, inclusive programs that do not exclude at-risk youth or other marginalized communities, holistic education based programs that build lifetime skills and create youth employment opportunities, and efforts that simultaneously create sustainable community educational resources and lasting community pride.
Our Initiatives
“Whenever the soil is rich the people flourish, physically and economically. Wherever the soil is wasted the people are wasted. A poor soil produces only a poor people—poor economically, poor spiritually and intellectually, poor physically.” George Washington Carver, 1938.
George Washington Carver Victory Garden and Farm
“It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men.” Frederick Douglass
In conjunction with the Muscogee County School District TAC is creating a 10 acre outdoor learning facility using agriculture and youth entrepreneurship to save lives and build futures. It is located along the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Outdoor Learning Trail adjacent to J. D. Davis Elementary and old Marshall Middle school. The vision is to become an agricultural & community innovation magnet for East Columbus. We aspire to spreading Victory Gardens to any interested neighborhood, church, apartment complex, or individuals backyard to fight hungry, climate change and violence.
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Outdoor Learning Trail
TAC’s Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Outdoor Learning Trail is anchored by the GWC Victory Garden & Farm. This unique Trail comprises 11 key locations of African American history in Columbus. Each site has a marker describing the historical significance . Columbus State University’s Geography Department partnered with TAC on documentation and design. Plans are to extend the Victory Garden by planting “Adopt a Spots” along the Trail and MLK Blvd.creating one of the longest urban gardens in the southeast. These would be small flowering and/or herb beds adjacent to each Trail marker locations in conjunction with adopting businesses and/or neighborhoods.
Restorative Justice Training & Demonstration
TAC’s newest effort is a restorative justice initiative to quell the spread of violence using the GW Carver Victory Garden and Farm as a part of helping youth find restorative justice and build peacemaking skills. Restorative Justice Initiative to serve at-risk youth in Muscogee County School District. The goal is to provide a critical, early intervention of academic enrichment, mentorship, and support for elementary students to reach critical milestones that can deter future criminal behavior and to employ at-risk high-school aged youth in positive work-based learning as Hope Dealers to provide affordable healthy food to their community.
Hope Dealers Entrepreneurs
Hope Dealer Entrepreneurs is for high school students to get on-the-job agricultural and entrepreneurial training. They learn about all aspects of managing and running the farm business. Operate the Hope Dealer Market harvesting, selling and distributing vegetables. Fort Valley State University has committed to allow our students to be eligible for a full ride scholarship if they choose a field in agriculture, participate in this program, and maintain a 3.0 grade point average. Tutoring is available if requested.
Taking Back Our Neighborhoods – Wrice Process Drugfighting Training
TAC’s first initiative was confronting drug trafficking in communities, having Herman Wrice use his Wrice Process to train neighbors, law enforcement and others to take back their neighborhoods from drug trafficking.
Our Impact
We have a strong history of positive change and have contributed to community transformation through the following successful projects:
- The War on Drugs: Community Drug Prevention Program (2005)
- The Carver High School Renovation (2007)
- Youth Tutoring and Summer Farm Stand Entrepreneurs Program (2013)
- The Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Outdoor Learning Trail (2020)
- Carver High School Mentorship and College Readiness Program in partnership with 4-H and Fort Valley State (2019)
- Breaking Bread-Telling the Story, Spreading the Word community dinner and conversations (2020)
Rooted in Unity, Blooming with Purpose
Reclaiming Our Community
Turn Around Columbus is creating a 10-acre youth-run farm and community-based learning and innovation center to reclaim this community from cycles of poverty and violence and to create a new path forward for youth and their families of opportunity, hope, health, and productive community engagement.
Since 2019, Turn Around Columbus has been mobilizing support and developing a vision for the Victory Garden & Farm to serve as a community resource center and an agriculture learning campus for the Muscogee County School District where youth learn how to grow food for their community and become entrepreneurs.
On this 10 acre site along Dr. Martin Luther King Boulevard we will run a Saturday garden program for elementary students, train high school aged garden leaders how to farm and run a small business, grow affordable and subsidized food for the East Columbus community, and host community events such as dinners, music performances, parenting classes and much more.
In this high need community and epicenter of African American history TAC created the Dr. Martin Luther King (MLK) Jr. Outdoor Learning Trail. The Dr. MLK Jr. Outdoor Learning Trail is a recreational walking trail and community education resource with eleven curated historical markers that honor African American history in Columbus, civil rights activists, and community leaders.
The trail runs from Macon Road at Rigdon to Bay Ave to the Chattahoochee River and connects this East Columbus Neighborhood to downtown Columbus. It is open to the public as a community educational and recreational resource.
