Dreamers visit to The Farm Behind the Gas Station

Dreamers visit to The Farm Behind the Gas Station

There’s something humbling about needing help.

This was my second attempt at visiting the urban farm pantry tucked away in College Park. I had received the schedule through Atlanta’s food assistance notification service, and this time I was determined to make it. The first time didn’t work out — buses, work, timing — life just sort of rearranged itself. But this day, I didn’t really have a choice. I needed food.

The farm was listed as open from 1 to 4 p.m. I even called ahead. A woman answered and told me they were technically closed, but I could still come by and “get a box.” That phrase alone felt quiet, almost coded — like generosity operating softly.

So I caught the bus down Main Street.

I stood in front of what looked like a historic house — the kind of house you’ve driven past a hundred times without ever really seeing it. It sits near a Marathon gas station, a stretch of road I’ve known since my twenties. I’ve walked it. Driven it. Lived around it.

And somehow, I never knew there was a farm behind that house.

When I called again, the woman told me to walk around to the black gate. It was open. I stepped through and immediately realized this wasn’t just a backyard — it was land. Rows. Space. Purpose.

A man riding a small orange tractor rolled up toward me. He slid open the door and greeted me plainly. I told him it was my first time. He asked how many were in my household.

“Just me and my dog.”

He asked where the dog was. I told him Zero is very old now. That seemed to register with him.

As he walked back toward the house, I looked around. There were “No Smoking” signs posted respectfully. Community artwork decorated the fencing — colorful, expressive, intentional. Murals that felt like stories. It was beautiful in a way that surprised me.

Then another young man approached — someone clearly going through a rough season of life. His name was Cortez. When the tractor-driving farmer went inside, he told Cortez to grab us drinks from the cooler out back. Cortez handed me a Sunkist — something I hadn’t had since childhood — and grabbed himself a Sprite.

We sat there talking while the boxes were being prepared.

I asked Cortez what the farmer’s name was. I felt strange not knowing it.

“Bobby,” he said. Then he added something unexpected — Bobby was the father of Bobby Valentino.

That stopped me.

One of the R&B voices that soundtracked my twenties — and here I was, sitting on a farm behind a gas station, receiving food from his father.

Life bends like that sometimes.

When Bobby came back out, he carried himself with a quiet, southern firmness. Honest. Attentive. Farmer-strong but gentle. He asked if I ate eggs. If I liked yogurt. I answered respectfully — “Yes, sir.” “No, sir.” He corrected me once when I tried to just say “I’ll take whatever.” He wanted specifics. Dignity lives in details.

A woman joined him and asked intake questions — household size, children, grants, elderly. I answered honestly. Just me.

Just me and my dog.

They packed cereal. Eggs. Yogurt. Food that would stretch.

And standing there, I kept thinking about how I had lived in this area for years — how many times I’d passed that very house, that gas station, that street — never knowing there was nourishment growing quietly behind it.

The gas station next door has had its share of rough headlines over the years. But right beside it? There’s cultivation. Service. Grace.

I left carrying my box and hurried to catch the bus. I made a quick stop at Family Dollar — my only chance to grab dog food before heading home. I made it just in time. A bag of food for Zero. Groceries for me.

It wasn’t dramatic.

It wasn’t cinematic.

But it was deeply human.

There’s something powerful about discovering that help has been growing behind places you thought you understood. Something sacred about people who give without fanfare. Something grounding about realizing that even in South Fulton — even behind gas stations — there are still farmers tending to more than crops.

They’re tending to people.

For a dreamer like me, that matters.

And I’m grateful.

-Antonio Douglas