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It’s been five years since Interfaith Neighbors’ Kula Café opened its doors on the corner of Springwood and Atkins avenues.

A year later, the on the job 16-week training program aimed at helping the area’s younger generation obtain jobs in the hospitality industry, launched Kula Urban Farm.

Located on neighboring land at 115 Atkins Ave, the farm features a 20 x 84 square foot greenhouse with a hydroponic growing system, as well as traditional and raised bed gardens on the 200 by 50 square foot lot.

By July 2016, the farm launched a similar social enterprise program aimed at helping those in the community facing challenges in securing employment.

“The idea is to offer seasonal employment to those who are having trouble finding employment, whether they have been incarcerated or have a disability,” farm Manager Lisa Bagwell has said.  “We want to be able to give people the job experience and references they will need to move forward with their lives.”

A year later, its Farm Without Borders, an expansion of their paid on-site job training and food and plant education program, opened across from Kula Café on Springwood Avenue next to long vacant Turf Club.

The farm also began hosting its Farm To Table dinner and cocktail events, with Kula Café preparing multi course meals featuring the farm’s produce. This past year, the dinners featured guest executive chefs from Langosta Lounge, Taka, and Café Mumford’s, to name a few. The also hosted an array of how-to workshops that featured everything from making your own sauerkraut and kombucha.

“We want the workshops to feature things that are all easy to make but that people spend a lot of money buying,” Bagwell said.

Also undergoing a growth in programming is the farm’s educational outreach school programs, which include onsite and school located tutorials with Our Lady of Mt. Carmel’s All Stars program, Sisters Academy, and Manasquan public school district, to name a few.

Today, all three sites are boasting new offerings and growth.

Among the first public events being offered this season, is an Open House Farm Tour, being held every half hour from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday at Kula Urban Farm.

Farm Managers Lisa Bagwell and Thijs van Oosterhout, along with their team of 10 trained farm assistants and six volunteers will showcase the greenhouse hydroponic growing operations, outside summer beds, and expanded Farm Without Borders community garden.

Local residents Rob Beatty and Ewelima Makowska serve as farm managers and special events coordinators.

Through an agreement with the local Elks Club [owners of the neighboring land], the community garden has expanded along Adams Street to out to Atkins Avenue; growing from 1,500 square foot to 10,500 square feet.

Bagwell and her team used a cardboard, mulch, and straw foundation to build up the no till garden, which will offer the community gratis potatoes, garlic, strawberries, tomatoes, cucumbers, sweet potatoes, beans, peas, cilantro, squash, eggplant, okra, callaloo, collard, and other lettuces, to name a few. There’s also been a growth in produce being cultivated at the Atkins Avenue farm.

“We’ve been building out the greenhouse grow walls,” Bagwell said. “We are making out the space to increase the growing operation.”

That expansion falls in line with the farm now supplying produce to close to 15 restaurants, including Langosta Lounge, Cardinal and Watermark.

The Master Gardeners of Monmouth will be on hand Saturday to provide gardening advice and children’s crafts, and Shore Grow of Ocean Township administer a how to workshop for those interested in setting their own hydroponic garden. The event also feature a seed swap and the sale of fresh hydroponic produce and homegrown organic tomato seedlings.

Refreshments will be provided by the newly renovated Kula Café, operated by Executive Chef Bilal Mohammed and Jennifer Freeman.

Mohammed, 38, is a city native who came on board in December. He said the revamped menu pays homage to venues that once lined the southwest neighborhood. Examples include the Mr. Mincie and Griffin burger options, Kershaw’s BBQ chicken Sandwich, Fisch’s Quesadilla, and Wali’s Fish & Chips – named for his father’s former shop.

“The goal is to provide a really good product; things that are familiar and not so familiar at a good price that caters to the those who live in the neighborhood and the larger community,” he said. “I wanted to come back to help the community I came from; to help bring it back to where it belongs.”    

Mohammed is a Pennsylvania Institute of Culinary Arts graduate who worked for 4½ years as chef at Pop’s Garage on the Asbury Park Boardwalk and, from 2001 to 2009, as a chef for Hilton Hotels.

Freeman, a Natural Gourmet Institute for Health and Culinary Arts graduate, hails most recently from a tenure at Kitch Organic in Red Bank. Her organic centered culinary passion, she said, was from a desire to help her family address a genetic predisposition to cancer.

“I became committed to helping others fight disease by promoting healthier ways of eating and enjoying food for life,” she said. “My background in natural foods and nutrition seemed to pair perfectly with my desire to grow and know where the food I’m cooking with comes from.”

Freeman has over 10 years of experience and is skilled in traditional, vegan, gluten-free, wheat-free, raw cuisine, macrobiotic preparation, as well as in alternative meal and dessert preparations.

“My commitment to bringing only the finest, freshest, healthiest, and most delicious ingredients to your table is exceeded only by my intense drive to help people heal their bodies with nutrient-dense food,” she said.

The café and farm are operated by Interfaith Neighbors’ Business Development Center. Since its 2013, Kula Cafe has graduated 100 from its on the job training program. This year, the program saw a vast uptick with 22 enrolled thus far, which was the total number graduated in 2017, General Manager Gillian Edgar said.

The café runs a Need To Feed free meal distribution program on Mondays and the farm distributes free produce to the community on Saturdays.

Upcoming programs include a 6 p.m. June 22 Farm to Table Cocktail Party that will feature passed hors d’oeuvres; a how to workshop by Leslie Feingold of Wildcraft on Main Street that will focus on healing salves.

Kula Urban Farm is open to the public 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Thursday to Saturday, and The café is open 8 .am. to 4 p.m. Tuesday through Sunday.

This summer, the café will be open 5 to 10 p.m. Monday from June 25 to August 27 to serve attendees of the Asbury Park Music Foundation’s summer concert series in Springwood Avenue Park. Mohammed said themed specialty menus will be based on the genre of music, ie Latin, Jazz, Hip Hop, R&B, Rock, etc.

For more about the Interfaith Neighbors Kula Cafe and Farm programs, visit their website, Facebook and Instagram pages.

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