Rural Resources - Dobson Farm

The quilt pattern selected to hang at Rural Resources, Grandmother's Flower Garden, has great significance to the Rural Resources' farm because the quilt that inspired it was made right here by Lizzie Brown Dobson in the early 1900's. Lizzie Dobson was the grandmother of Emily Dobson Childress one of the owners of the Rural Resources farm. Emily with her husband Harold and grandsons Carson, Hayden, & Spencer Correll and Elliot Childress helped to paint this pattern along with friends and neighbors including Valerie Wall, a local artist who also provided the detailed work in the pattern, Amanda Barger Gricunus, Mark Honeycutt, Dane Hinkle, Katherine Brown, Bill & Barbara Price, Chris & Ethan Stewart, Lynn Stone, and Sally Causey. In the early 1990's, two of Lizzie Dobson's great grandchildren and their wives (Watt and Jennifer Childress and Larry and Karen Childress) returned to the farm to learn about and practice sustainable agriculture. Immediately, they saw that farmland in the area was being sold for development at an alarming rate, decided that they wanted to try to do something to support farmland preservation, and Rural Resources was born.

Today, Rural Resources is a non-profit organization dedicated to educating the community in the preservation and improvement of agricultural land, preserving our rural heritage, and developing a locally sustainable system of producing and marketing agricultural products. With offices located in a renovated barn on the farm, a variety of programs are coordinated in an effort to sustain family farms. They include a Farm Day Camp for children, Organic Gardening classes, Workshops for farmers, the Downtown Greenville Farm & Garden Market, The Four Seasons Grazing Club, the Farm to Community Food Project and more.

Learn all about sustainable agriculture and the importance of farmland preservation at Rural Resources Farm.