Common Ground

Kinston native and a relative newcomer to town have teamed up with a handful of other community members to create Common Ground of Eastern North Carolina, a nonprofit effort to promote community gardening, outdoor activity and greater health among local children and adults.
"We decided young people around here were struggling for lack of resources, lack of opportunities and just thought it would be worthwhile trying out some ideas we have been exposed to," said Lee Albritton of Kinston, who recently founded Common Ground with the Rev. Julian Pridgen.
Albritton is a lifelong resident of Kinston, and graduated from Kinston High School in 1980. He currently works as a Spanish-language interpreter for the federal and state courts and at Pitt County Memorial Hospital.
"It's led to a focus on getting kids outside and as a way to support academic achievement," Albritton said of Common Ground. "And also introducing them to vocations like gardening and farming, cooking; there's all kinds of possibilities that can tie into those garden-based activities."
Pridgen is a native of Whiteville and moved to Kinston in 1999 to assume the duties of pastor of St. Augustus AME Zion Church, where he is still pastor.
"I have a particular theological interest in the idea humans come from the earth, according to the Bible, and it is the earth that sustains us," the pastor said. "So we should care for it and I think that's something that we should be very much aware of, the mutual relationship between our human-ness and this earth that we live on."
He and Albritton met through the church -- Pridgen invited him to read Scripture in Spanish during a Martin Luther King Jr. Day service.
"I happen to really like Lee because he appreciates the community that produced him and wants to do something to make it better, and I agree and want to help him," Pridgen said.
Albritton said the group has filed its articles of incorporation with the N.C. Secretary of State's office, and applied to the IRS for 501c3 nonprofit status.
He has been trained through the Lenoir County Master Gardner's program, and has reached out to representatives of the Lenoir County Cooperative Extension and teachers, administrators and central office staff with the Lenoir County Public Schools.
The most recent board meeting was held Nov. 30 at The Gate Community Development Center, with about 19 people in attendance. Albritton is executive director, Pridgen is vice president of the board and Jessica Seymour is board president.
Group leaders plan to work with sixth-graders at Rochelle Middle School on an indoor gardening project this winter, and eventually establish a community garden along MLK Boulevard by the fall of 2011.