Erica Bretchelsbauer
Growing up in St. Louis, Rob Horton remembers lining up with friends before school at the corner store for penny candy or Doritos smothered in chili and cheese.
With a lack of fresh food in his neighborhood, the sweet and fatty snacks were readily available, filling, and inexpensive for a kid on frigid mornings. Then after school, he’d race back to the store hoping to be first in line for another sweet snack.
“It tasted really great but wasn’t the best for your body,” he recalls.
Several years later, as a student at Tennessee State University, Horton began to want healthier options yet noticed a resemblance to his past.
“The demographics around Jefferson Street were very similar to my surroundings growing up,” he says. “You had no direct access to anything that was fresh, healthy, and affordable. I know there was—and still is—a grocery store there. But they didn’t always have the freshest items or a lot of variety at that time.”
Out of frustration, Horton joined a community gardening program operated through TSU, even though he had no gardening experience. It led him, eventually, to create Trap Garden, named as a nod to the trap houses he saw in St. Louis and where entrepreneurs often tried to make their way out for a better life in dangerous ways, like selling drugs. Horton, though, wanted to sell a healthier product.
“How could I create a really fun and engaging experience to where community members got hooked on eating healthier, where they want to come back for more?”
Before Trap Garden, Horton’s career began in public health. He earned a graduate degree and worked as a healthcare consultant in hospitals, helping provide better outcomes for patients. These days at 31, he’s full-time with Trap Garden and says the work really isn’t so different.
“I’m going into communities and working with people, and neighborhoods, and business owners, and schools to create something that’s going to increase the health of the people in that community,” he says.
Erica Bretchelsbauer
Trap Garden currently has two garden locations. At Johnson Alternative Learning Center in South Nashville, community members grow crops like tomatoes, collards, and okra on about 30 raised beds. Then at Buena Vista Elementary in North Nashville, students get involved through curriculum. They decide what to plant and learn where food comes from while also learning business skills—ad campaigns and sales strategizes for the vegetables they grow.
Both gardens require sponsors to offset school costs, which Horton says he’s always working to secure while also seeking partners with land for additional gardens.
But most importantly, Horton says he wants to meet the demands of the community.
“If we develop something—and it’s not developed with them, for them—it’s not going to be effective long-term.”
For example, he learned that beyond growing food, community members sought instruction on preparing it. So, he’s added cooking demonstrations by Nashville chefs and is challenging participants to create meals for $20 or less to feed a family of four. He’s also created a video series called FRSH Bites, which offers fun, approachable clips about people encountering new foods or tips on building a home planting box. This winter, he received a grant from the Kroger Community Foundation to help fund additional demos and videos.
“We continue to grow and shift and pivot,” he says, “based on what we see in the community.”