In the middle of the 2025 season, Mitzvah Garden KC (MGKC) brought a new farm manager onto their team. Nick Smith joined the Mitzvah Garden KC staff last spring, taking over from Brenda Ruppel, who retired to Florida.
"When I first started volunteering, and Ken [Sonnenschein] offered me the role, I was just excited because I'm borderline obsessed with gardening and I saw MGKC as a playground to grow as much food as humanly possible," Smith said. "I've learned it's so much more than growing vegetables, and seeing the joy and borderline shock on peoples faces when I tell them how much they harvested or how much what they planted might yield is what keeps me going."
Smith is a veteran of the U.S. Army, and he served in Iraq from 2008-2009. Before working at the Mitzvah Garden, he worked a desk job in information technology for an Israeli startup. His vision for the future of the garden is a "World War II-style Victory Garden," reconnecting himself and others with the earth.
"Helping maintain a space for people to perform such a mitzvah is the best part of this job," Smith said. "We're having conversations amongst the fruit vines, watching the butterflies while making a serious difference for our neighbors who are in need."
Read more at The Jewish Chronicle
