Video by: Darian Woehr
“I feel like when I put my hands in dirt, that’s when healing began,” Davon Goodwin a farmer in Raeford, North Carolina shares during an interview. Goodwin has been farming for five years now but can still remember what it felt like to be on the battlefield when he closes his eyes. After surviving an explosion in Afghanistan back in 2010, Goodwin returned home, but the Davon who left for war was not the same Davon who returned home. The explosions left Goodwin with a broken back and a detrimental brain injury. Davon experienced severe memory loss, narcolepsy and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and is still fighting to overcome these issues today.
Farming is what has helped Davon find peace and recovery in what he calls his “second life”. Goodwin is now on The Board of Directors for The Young Farmers Coalition and hopes that other young people can reconnect to the land in order to heal and to have greater understanding for where our food comes from. He reflects on his past five years by saying, “I think doing this job in farming and feeding our community, it makes it makes life, you know, well worth it… and being able to create greater access in the community is why we do what we do.”
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This story is part two of a two-part series. View part one here.
