In the News
In this monthly episode, City Corner host/ producer Sarah Thompson is connecting with nature, self-care, organic gardening, holistic health, sustainability, and food equity. It all comes together at Rustic Roots Sanctuary where Sarah chats with Janett Lewis, the Sanctuary’s founder and executive director about the 7+ acre site in Spanish Lake that hosts a farm, community garden, and healing space for the community.
Lewis found peace by connecting with her community, playing with her farm animals and working the land on her farm, Rustic Roots Sanctuary in Spanish Lake. In the process, she’s found healing for herself and others too.
A week after the Minneapolis jury’s verdict, Black people in the St. Louis region are struggling to reconcile a brief moment of relief with painful reminders that police continue to use deadly force against Black people. They’re also seeking ways to heal from generational trauma — through therapy, yoga, meditation and spending time outdoors.
“I feel like I’m on the right path,” Lewis said. “I’m doing everything I want to do, everything I love. From eating good food to healing through whole foods to teaching people about nutrition and health and also doing these empowerment workshops where we actually get to work through our crap because I feel like we got to deconstruct, to reconstruct.”
“The first two years everything I had, my time, energy, heart, and money, all of it went into creating this space I had envisioned so long ago,” said Lewis.
Rustic Roots Sanctuary became a 501c 3 at the beginning of 2020, and for almost three years Lewis spends up to 12 hours on her farm cultivating the land. She grows corn, beans, okra, carrots, tomatoes, cantaloupe, and watermelon and that’s not the whole list. This talented woman of the land loves being in nature, surrounding herself with things created from the earth.
North St. Louis County farmers are close to seeing $3.2 million in county funding that would help build out urban farms and put more fresh fruits, vegetables and other produce on thousands of tables in their communities.
County Bill 54, sponsored by Councilwoman Shalonda Webb, D-St. Louis County, could be approved Tuesday by the St. Louis County Council. It would provide funding to Rustic Roots Sanctuary in Spanish Lake to help support programs and services that could enhance north county’s local food systems and provide long-term solutions to food insecurity in the area.
“We’re breathing life back into this community,” Webb said. “Being able to let people use their hands to grow good food and to sustain a good life means so much to people.”
