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Jonesborough Farmers Market co-founder Karen Childress puts global adventures to good use in her “own backyard.”
It’s hard to believe that Karen Childress grew up a loner who preferred solitary pastimes like drawing and playing make-believe in the woods behind her family’s house. Today, the bubbly, persistent co-founder of Jonesborough (Tennessee) Locally Grown, Jonesborough Farmers Market and Boone Street Market is known for her talkative nature, especially when she’s sharing stories about her favorite farm-to-consumer projects.
“I won’t give up on anything. If I see something that needs to be done, I want to do it, and I am not patient. I want to do it tomorrow,” says Childress, 54, who recently retired as executive director of Jonesborough Locally Grown but is still a “very active” board member.
The Lexington, Kentucky, native credits her personality change to an epiphany in her junior year of high school in Charlotte, North Carolina, after years of moving around so much for her dad’s IBM career that it was hard to forge lasting friendships.
“I figured that if I was going to make friends or do anything, I had to be way more outgoing and get involved. So I did a 180 and was president of this club and that, and suddenly I made my mark.”
While earning her degree in international studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Childress spent a semester in Bolivia with a former stepsister. Donkeys roamed the streets, indigenous residents in stucco houses wore native garb, and for the first time in her life, Childress enjoyed the camaraderie of a close-knit family that stayed in one place.
A connection with the ambassador’s office led to a job with USAID (United States Agency for International Development) that propelled Childress across the country, visiting remote communities punctuated by one-lane mud roads and a dramatic backdrop of mountain peaks, deserts and rainforests.
“It really was like, ‘Wow, the world is a big place, and I want to see more of it,’” she recalls.
While earning her graduate degree in public policy, she completed two community internships—one in Whitesburg, Kentucky, where she worked with a recycling agency at a time when the concept of environmental stewardship was just taking off, the other in Costa Rica, where she developed school curricula focused on the importance of preserving the rainforest.
“And I found out that’s what I really enjoyed,” she says. “I like the hands-on, direct connection of working with community members to solve a problem.
“Somewhere along the line while I was traveling,” she adds, “I realized that protecting the environment is something that can be done everywhere. It’s something I could do in my own backyard.”
In 1993, a fellowship award enabled her family to return to a farm property in Greene County, Tennessee, where they hosted a college environmental education program. It was there that she, with the help of several like-minded peers, launched her first official sustainability initiative. Looking back, Rural Resources, a nonprofit organization that supported farmers, was strikingly similar to Jonesborough Locally Grown, but without the public markets.
After a “long detour” that included hiking the Appalachian Trail, managing an inn in Ecuador, and traversing South America with her husband, Larry, Childress returned to the states to teach Spanish in Hendersonville, then Johnson City. The couple moved to Jonesborough in 2001, shortly after their son was born, and she began working as Hispanic outreach coordinator at East Tennessee State University College of Nursing. Over the next few years, Childress, her neighbor and renowned chairmaker Curtis Buchanan, and organic farmer Heather Halsey tossed around the idea for a farmers market. It started small, with interested residents congregating around Halsey’s Subaru hatchback to purchase fresh produce.
In 2008, the Jonesborough Farmers Market opened in the town’s library parking lot with a handful of vendors and Childress as manager. Two years later, when the bustling marketplace moved to Courthouse Square, volunteers and farmers helped each other erect tents and unload cars.
“I don’t know if it’s something we did or if it’s just the community,” says Childress. “But people really pitch in to help each other.”
Thanks to no small amount of “scheming” by Childress and Buchanan, along with donations and a grant from the Tennessee Department of Agriculture, in October 2014 the nonprofit Boone Street Market opened in a former gas station at the corner of Boone and Main streets. The year-round retail store, which relies on fundraisers and local government subsidies, now stocks food items from 100 different vendors within a 100-mile radius.
Jonesborough Locally Grown was also incorporated to carry out the expanded mission. The name originally referred to the off-season online ordering system for the farmers market, an option that gave it a leg up when the COVID-19 shutdown hit last spring. Thanks to pre-paid, drive-through pickup, loyal customers continued to enjoy local products ranging from smoked bacon and spinach to goat cheese and pet treats.
“Fresh, locally-raised produce is vital to physical health,” Childress says. “But to me, the health of the community is enhanced by the relationships that are created at our markets. … Our markets bring people together and allow connections with farmers that are impossible in grocery stores.”
She laughs out loud when asked about her own gardening skills—or the lack thereof. “
I have a black thumb,” she says. “That’s another reason to be involved with a farmers market, so that I could get really good food from people who know how to grow it. I’ve grown the occasional tomato, but it is not my strong suit.”
Managing three soccer-playing teenagers takes up most of her time when she’s not working on special projects for the organization she co-founded. She also returns to Bolivia whenever possible and likes to hike.
“But honestly,” she says, “Jonesborough Locally Grown is my hobby, career and fourth child.”
KAREN CHILDRESS’ 3 FAVORITE THINGS TO PICK UP AT THE JONESBOROUGH FARMERS MARKET
- Fresh eggs. “I used to keep my own chickens, but I couldn’t do it. There is nothing like fresh eggs.”
- Cinnamon raisin bread. “It’s from one of our bakers and it’s great.”
- Lettuce. ”I don’t like the super-fancy ones. I like buttercrunch and the ones that are softer. I like the tender lettuce.” —NH
The story above first appeared in our Sept. / Oct. 2021 issue.
