Welcome to Mississippi

Welcome to Mississippi


We started off our first full day in Mississippi, after a small detour, becoming familiar with the structure and various goings on around MEGA (Mississippians Engaged in Greener Agriculture). MEGA, located in Shelby, Mississippi, functions, among other things, as a community garden, food pantry, and agricultural education center.

 After an introduction and a tour, we got to work putting together boxes of food for the food pantry, which serves about 250 families a month in the area. We then moved on to feeding the bunny rabbits, and laying down leaves for the chickens, one of which hit Billy in the head!

After our day at MEGA and a quick change of clothes, we walked over to Temple Adath Israel, which is the synagogue in Cleveland, Mississippi. There we were able to meet a few of the congregants, who told us about their family histories, and their experiences of Jewish life in Mississippi. We then listened to a talk by Professor Jennifer Stollman, from the University of Mississippi, who gave us a more in depth explanation of the history of southern Jewish life. To round out the day some of the congregants of the temple served us a delicious dinner in true Mississippi style with barbeque chicken, chili, sweet tea, and brownies so good that we took the rest back with us!


Sarah Hart