Yves Doumen, founder of the Motherland Gardens on Springfield’s east side, said, “Pepper, tomato, cabbage, basil, any type of herbs that I can imagine. Cucumber, watermelon, cantaloupe, green bean, carrot, Swiss chard, sunflower, sweet potato. I can keep going – it is a long list."
He’s rattling off some of the plants growing in 50 raised beds on the acre of land he purchased to help contribute fresh vegetables and fruit to an area where those things can be hard to access.
Doumen, who came from Cameroon to Springfield in 2017, says after arriving in central Illinois he longed to grow things as he had done in his west African home.
He missed the foods from his homeland like cassava, cocoyam and plantain. The foods he said weren’t available or when he found something, it was too expensive.
Soon, he had a spot in the community garden at Lincoln Land Community College, where he was a student at the time.
He said was met with gratitude by his classmates receiving the produce.
“For me, it was just something normal, growing stuff is normal,’’ the 34-year-old said. “I started doing it when I was probably five years old.”
When he donated his produce to food pantries in the area, he noticed something: most of the food was canned or dry – not fresh.
Doumen, who had been working for a nonprofit in Cameroon to help improve agricultural production there, started putting together the garden at 815 S. 15th St. in earnest in 2020.
He calls what he has created on that acre a puzzle. When put together, it is a community beautification effort, a campaign to provide free and culturally relevant foods (think tomatillo and mustard greens) and even a job creation opportunity.
“You can imagine when we bought this area three years ago. It was it was just like a giant dumpster in the middle of nowhere. And we have put a lot of work to clean it up…. to cut trees down, clean the area, get stone out,’’ he said. “So, it is a lot of money that were spent here.”
That includes $40,000 of his own savings, including earning from his service in the National Guard.
Darren Burris helped. Doumen ran across Burris’ company when he was looking for dirt and the two struck up a friendship.
“He had this garden idea. I try to volunteer and do stuff for the city. And I thought, “Well, hey, you know, I can help you,” said Burris, who brought mulch, dug water lines and helped clear brush and trees.
Doumen’s major partners are Memorial Health and the HSHS system. Other’s providing grants and/or in-kind services include Bank of Springfield, Westminster Presbyterian Church. the Community Foundation, the City of Springfield, the Outlet and the Springfield Civic Garden Club. He says people come by and drop off watering cans, cardboard, rakes and shovels and the like.
Lingling Liu, the community engagement and equity, diversity and inclusion coordinator for the Memorial Health system, said, “There's a lot of benefits that this one project brings to Springfield, and specifically to the east side of Springfield, where we see a lot of Black and African American African American residents.”
She noted that there is a huge economic disparity among Black and African American residents in Springfield compared to white residents.
“Access to healthy, fresh nutritious food is a huge factor in improving one’s health,” she said.
The Garvey Tubman Cultural Arts and Research Center brought students from a six-week summer arts program to the Garden to work in June and July, said Shatriya Smith, who directs the center and remembers a garden her grandmother planted kitty corner from Doumen’s garden.
“African Americans were punished when it came to, you know, farming. And we still are to this day punished when it comes to farming. Because the fact that we don't have enough African American farmers we don't have enough African American grocery stores,’’ she said.
In the future, Doumen wants a hoop house to grow produce out of season and more bees. He envisions programs to train people to grow their own food.
In the meantime, he says he offers food giveaways on Friday evenings and encourages people wanting produce to call him at 217-900-0876.
