Leah Carpenter Plants Seeds of Change

Leah Carpenter shows off some of her garden-grown veggies at Kingsbury Place Apartments.

Our community is filled with women leaders, from City Hall to the board rooms of our largest healthcare systems and corporations to our own executive team here at Heart of West Michigan United. But West Michigan is also enriched by women leaders whose faces you might not see on the evening news but whose contributions are no less essential.

In honor of International Women’s Day, March 8, we want to introduce you to one of those leaders: Leah Carpenter.

Leah is deeply invested in the health of her community. She’s always volunteering, especially when it comes to housing and food issues. When we met, she was in the midst of planning for the upcoming growing season in the community garden at Kingsbury Place Apartments, the supportive housing community where she lives.

Leah, right, after a tree-planting at Kingsbury Place Apartments.

A die-hard gardener and committed seed-saver, Leah loves being in the garden. For those who aren’t as keen on “playing in the dirt,” she plans to use food as a lure:

“I’m hoping this year we can do more canning and tell people, come in the community room and have some canned food, or fresh tomatoes. If we say, ‘free tomatoes’ instead of from the garden they won’t feel bad about taking them.”

Leah has lived at Kingsbury since it opened in 2006. The product of many agencies and individuals coming together to help people overcome their housing barriers, it’s a microcosm of United Way’s work in the community: owned by Genesis Non-Profit Housing Corporation, managed by Dwelling Place, with a social worker onsite from Pine Rest Christian Mental Health Services. All three are United Way partner agencies.

Leah in the garden at Kingsbury Place Apartments.

Leah is an uber-volunteer.

She’s served on Dwelling Place’s marketing and resident advisory committees, helping the organization tailor its services to best meet the needs of those it serves. She’s participated in food rescue activities at DeVos Place following conventions, pitched in during Dwelling Place’s clean-up efforts at Pekich Park on Division Avenue, and organized a summer celebration at Kingsbury this summer called “Small Steps. Big Changes.”

On the day we spoke, she was planning a going-away party for her sister and brother-in-law, who were leaving soon to start a teaching farm in Liberia — a country she’s traveled to twice with her church.

“I like going, wandering, seeing. I like history and learning new things,” Leah says. “I’m always looking for more information, not just the surface report. I want to see, okay, where did this start? What was the situation that brought it on? It’s like, that’s the way the system is, but does it have to be that way, really?”

When Leah speaks, people listen.

“She’s almost got those mayoral vibes,” says Jonathan DeHaan, who coordinates more than 15 community garden plots for Dwelling Place and has come to know Leah well.

“She’s very much one of those natural leaders. She really desires for things to happen and does the work of making it happen. She definitely has a presence.”

Leah and Jonathan share an interest in using food as a means of fostering the health of communities, the soil, and the body. So when Leah proposed bringing a six-week healthy cooking class to Kingsbury, Jonathan was all in.

“This I felt was a really good way to kind of get the ball rolling even before we start the garden season,” Jonathan says. “One of the emphases I want to make this year is looking at utilizing the produce that we grow, looking at ways to prepare it, healthy alternatives, cooking. It seemed like a natural fit.”

Eating Smart. Being Active is a healthy eating and active living curriculum offered locally by the YMCA of Greater Grand Rapids. A previous version of the class was held at Kingsbury a couple years ago and included free groceries for all participants — an important draw because many residents are on fixed incomes.

Leah knew that, in order to draw people to the class, they needed to provide food again. “I’m one of those people who’s not afraid to ask. The worst they can do is say no.”

She pitched the concept to the “head honchos” and Dwelling Place and Genesis agreed to fund it.

Kingsbury residents and YMCA staff at the cooking class Leah organized this winter.

Each session drew eight-to-ten participants and about a dozen took part overall — about a third of Kingsbury’s residents. Led by a nutritionist from the Y, the participants learned how to shop for foods that are low in salt and sugar, how to make smoothies and bean dishes, and practiced simple exercise and breathing routines.

“Food can heal you. Food can also kill you,” Leah says. “But if you eat the right things, it can heal you.”

On the last day, the class held a potluck.

“It was just over the top,” Jonathan says. They ended up with more food than they could possibly eat – tacos, enchiladas, pico de gallo. “It was just deluxe.”

Jonathan credits the success of the class to Leah. “She was the one who contacted YMCA and really helped set up the class and was doing the harder work to find funding so that everyone could have groceries.”

Leah isn’t sure where it comes from, her willingness to step up, ask the questions, seize the opportunities. She says she’s just always been that way. And she believes its critical for people living at Kingsbury and in other supportive housing communities — anyone who’s been on the receiving end of services – to put their knowledge and gifts to use.

“My biggest thing is just because I might be in those categories, don’t push me off to the side or I don’t belong or I should not,” Leah says. “Don’t pigeonhole me. Don’t box me in.”

In the garden, in the kitchen, in the meeting rooms where she serves on committees, Leah wants to encourage her fellow residents to step up and share their knowledge and show that “we’re not always on the receiving end of help, but we can give help.”