‘A true inspiration’: Unique garden project at Antioch church earns $35,000 grant

ANTIOCH – A couple of years ago, Jerry and Beth Bingold were asked to look out the side door of NorthBridge Church in Antioch.

“What do you see?” Pastor Dawn Hayman asked them.

“A field,” Jerry Bingold said.

“A greenhouse,” Hayman replied.

The Bingolds, a retired couple from Antioch, immediately heard themselves accepting Hayman’s challenge to create a food source at the church. At the time, they didn’t exactly know why or what would happen next.

It just felt right, Jerry Bingold said.

“It was a true inspiration,” he said.

Today, the Bingolds are the driving force behind the church’s Green Growers program, an initiative designed to provide nutritious food year-round to those in need through a hydroponic greenhouse and community garden. Hydroponics involves growing plants without soil by using water-based mineral nutrient solutions in an artificial environment.

The Bingolds also plan to draw together a multigenerational team of volunteers and workers, including youth at the church and people with disabilities from the nearby Matthias Academy, a nonprofit adult day program in southeast Wisconsin, about a mile north of Antioch.

“This is our mission,” Beth Bingold said. “This is us telling the world that there is more to being a Christian. There’s more we can do.”

Green Growers recently earned a $35,000 Kingdom Advancing Grant from the Brotherhood Mutual Foundation. Awarded to support church programs that are transforming local communities through service and ministry in unconventional and creative ways, the grant includes a year of mentorship from leaders of ministries throughout the country.

“What stood out to me about the Green Growers initiative at NorthBridge is that they actually were looking for ways to get upriver from the problem of hunger and they listened to their community,” said Kathy Bruce, director of the Brotherhood Mutual Foundation.

Awarding $150,000 in total, the foundation reviewed almost 300 grant applications and chose nine recipients in late June. Of those recipients, Green Growers earned the largest grant amount.

The program not only aims to produce 1 to 2 tons of food its first year, meeting the needs of 200 families a week, it will sustain itself, Bruce said. Half the food from Green Growers will be distributed by two area food pantries. The other half will be supplied to grocery stores or sold at a produce stand and proceeds will pay a portion of the overhead costs.

The Bingolds plan to grow foods highly requested by the community, such as collard greens.

“I think it’s inspirational to see here’s a couple taking the experiences of their careers and their retirement and giving back in such a big way,” Bruce said. “They’re finding so much joy in it. People need purpose in their lives and this couple has found such a wonderful way to have purpose in their lives.”

The Brotherhood Mutual Foundation initially created the Kingdom Advancing Grant when churches were forced to close doors during the pandemic, Bruce said.

At that time, churches were finding ways to still reach the community, such as bringing sound equipment to drive-in theaters and city parks.

“Our thought was, ‘Wow, if they’re going to pivot like that into the community, maybe there’s a way we can help fund them and give visibility to what they’re doing so others can try the same idea,’ ‘’ Bruce said. “That’s really when this took off.”

The Kingdom Advancing Grant will allow the Bingolds to expand Green Growers in several phases. A community garden already grows produce, such as tomatoes, peppers and beans, on the church property, located along Route 173 in Antioch.

The next step is to create a high tunnel garden, basically a large cold-frame hoop house or tent to hold more crops, by winter, Beth Bingold said.

By mid-2025, the Bingolds hope to construct the hydroponic garden to create even more produce, such as lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers and more.

The concept behind Green Growers is based on a program at a church that Hayman visited in Lake Zurich. The Lake Zurich church, Hope Collective, created a farm built around a hydroponic greenhouse to provide food year-round to those in need.

The Bingolds also explored Lake County College’s Growing Healthy People program, which includes a soilless Tech Farm that provides teaching and food for the college’s Culinary Arts Program and the community.

Students of the Matthias Academy, which serves adults with mild to severe disabilities from Illinois and Wisconsin, have learned how to garden at the Growing Health People program. The Bingolds hope to employ some of them at Green Growers.

Youth at NorthBridge Church can work at the gardens to gain funding for mission trips and other activities or volunteer hours, the Bingolds said.

Retired from a career in sustainable technology since 2018, Jerry Bingold said everything seems to keep falling in place with Green Growers.

“This is the only thing that really feels like this is why we’re here,” he said. “We’re just so pleased. Not everyone finds that and we have the sense we’ve found it. And we’re doing it together.”

Volunteering is not something you ever really retire from, Beth Bingold said.

“This is the plan,” she said. “This is what’s supposed to happen. We’ve just been trying to keep up with God and all the things he’s been doing.”