Full Circle Healing Farm: How one couple is feeding their community in many ways

 

MEQUON, Wis. (CBS 58) – A hometown couple is feeding their community in more than one way.

"We are a bio-intensive, two-acre veggie, flower, and herb farm that caters to the city of Milwaukee," Martice Scales said.

If Scales and his wife Amy Kroll could go back 10 years and talk with themselves, they would never guess what their lives would look like today.

"I got a divine call," Scales said.

"I was in school for computers and one day I just heard spirits say, 'Hey, you need to learn how to grow food, and then you need to turn around and teach people that look like you how to grow food'."

That unexpected message led the duo to create Full Circle Healing Farm, the venture they have cultivated together for the last decade.

"One of our big tenants is we want people to have quality food even if they don't have the funds to pay for it," Scales explained. "So, we try to price our items as low as possible so that people can actually afford them."

They grow a large variety of produce and herbs.

"Tomatoes, green peppers, cucumbers, beets, all the stuff you'd expect at a market garden," Scales said.

They also do it naturally.

"It's really hard," Kroll said. "It would be so easy to just go to the store and grab bottles of insecticides or herbicides or chemicals to help our plants grow and look like other farmers' plants do. But we're really committed to not having any sort of chemicals at all."

With no exceptions to that rule, they tell CBS 58 there is nothing better than seeing someone bite into one of their products.

Their farm is not just a place to grow delicious food to sell at low prices or donate to food pantries, it is also where they plant the seeds of farming into the next generation, specifically people of color.

"I get a lot of enjoyment out of teaching people," Scales said. "In some of the children and the youth, it's like I'm seeing myself and giving myself an opportunity that I missed. So, I'm giving those youth an opportunity that I think everyone should have and to be able to see someone that looks like them giving it to them it means something."

With no farming background to begin with, it has been a true labor of love that has been fueled by Scales' desire to get more people into agriculture.

"If we can depend on ourselves to feed ourselves, we'll be okay, even if the system itself isn't working," he said.

Food is not their only focus.

"Before I became a farmer, I was a therapist, and I am still a therapist," Kroll said.

They also hold classes at The Table in Milwaukee to nourish people's physical and mental health, creating a full circle of healing.

"We do services like therapy, Reiki, and ayurvedic services," Scales explained. "We're trying to take classism out of self-care. So, we have a sliding scale on those services as well. We also do social justice retreats and racial wellness and racial healing services."

After several years, they have outgrown the space they currently use at the Mequon Nature Preserve, so to help them buy their own farm and continue their calling, they are raising money.

"Full Circle healing really thinks about healing the mind, body, spirit, and the community," Kroll said.

For more information on Full Circle Healing Farm, visit their website.