For McKay Jenkins, no week is complete without getting his hands in the dirt.

On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, the local writer and educator shuffles up and down I-95 in his electric pickup to the University of Delaware, where he teaches journalism in the English Department. But on afternoons in between, he is busy planting trees at the Stillmeadow Peace Park in Southwest Baltimore or tending to the vegetables growing at his Rock Rose Food Justice Project urban farm in Woodberry.

During warm-weather months, he’ll drop off more than 100 pounds of radishes in the spring or sweet potatoes in the fall to community kitchens across the city.

At 62, Jenkins has rooted himself squarely between both worlds, using his professional writing and physical labor to become an environmental steward of the Mid-Atlantic. Though as he sees it, they’re one and the same.

“I never thought of myself as an academic scholar,” says Jenkins, who began his career as a staff reporter for newspapers like the Capital Gazette in Annapolis. “As a journalist, I was always engaged with the world and writing about it, so the transition to doing the work was a very thin line.”

A native of Yonkers, New York, Jenkins knew from early on that he wanted to write books, finding the format of those daily papers constricting. Earning his doctorate at Princeton University, he honed his narrative craft under legendary nonfiction writers like John McPhee, whose meticulous reporting style and interest in nature resonated with Jenkins—a lifelong outdoorsman, who in his spare time can often be found hiking, biking, and paddling down the Susquehanna River. Now an author himself, his books have delved into natural disasters, toxic chemicals, and genetically modified food.

All the while, he’s melded his subject-matter expertise with lived experience. Jenkins, who began working at urban farms during graduate school, has managed various environmental projects in Maryland and Delaware over the past three decades, from working with local Native American tribes on forest regeneration and garden re-establishment to steering food equity initiatives in Baltimore.

Here, in 2019, in a fallow community garden, he launched Rock Rose, where harvests get donated to community partners like Love & Cornbread and Soul Kitchen to be turned into ready-to-eat meals for city residents in need. On the side, he collaborates with other ecologists, educators, and faith-based institutions on a variety of volunteer efforts, from stream cleanups and tree plantings to the removal of invasive plants from local properties and city forests. Oftentimes, he enlists his students to lend a hand, having launched an environmental humanities minor at UD, where he’s taught since 1996.

Altogether, these efforts have helped make his writing feel more actionable—getting “your body into the work itself,” says Jenkins, while also deepening his interest in “peeling back layers” and “trying to reveal systems,” both social and environmental.

To that end, he became a certified master naturalist in 2018 after completing University of Maryland’s certification program, which educates residents on how to identify, maintain, and repair local ecosystems.

That led to his latest book, The Maryland Master Naturalist’s Handbook, an educational guide co-edited with UMD’s Joy Shindler Rafey and published in June by Johns Hopkins University Press. A collaboration with various experts, the Handbook explores the ecological wonders of the Old Line State, from Appalachia to the Chesapeake Bay to Baltimore City, which can be used by researchers and laypeople alike to learn about everything from geology, soil health, native wildlife, and invasive species to citizen science, climate change, and environmental justice.

The goal is to inspire others to help spread the environmental gospel, and in turn protect the place which we call home, says Jenkins, using a fitting literary analogy to convey this point: “It’s like painting the fence in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. You turn people on to this, and then everybody wants to get on board.”

Inside the long, bright, shared workspace of Bmore Kitchen in Mid-Govans, Sue May is standing like a daffodil in a snowstorm. With her sleeves rolled up, she shifts a box of organic lettuce across a stainless-steel table as dozens of other business owners rush between their own tasks.

Her head chef, Kiara Young, aka “Kyeez,” has unloaded cartons of milk in the walk-in cooler and now turns her attention to a surplus of broccoli. In a few hours, when a half-dozen volunteers show up, they’ll whip it into cheddar soup—just one part of the 400-some meals to be made for their community this week.

“Do you like granola?” asks Young, before setting off in search of a to-go container studded with oats and pumpkin seeds.

“You can’t stop her from feeding people,” says May, with a shrug and smile.

In truth, those words could be a motto for Love & Cornbread, the small-but-mighty food-equity nonprofit founded by May in 2020. That August, in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic and a nationwide racial reckoning, the Mount Washington resident felt an urge to give back.

The home cook made a large batch of macaroni-and-cheese and headed to the busy corner of Pennsylvania and North Avenues in what could’ve been a bold move—this middle-aged white lady showing up in a notoriously under-resourced Black crossroads of Baltimore, near a site of protest following the murder of Freddie Gray. But all 35 servings disappeared quickly, and conversations with strangers about food and family inspired her to return. Nearly four years later, she hasn’t missed a Saturday since.

“West Baltimore gets such a bad rap, but if you show up, and are doing service to the community, and are doing it respectfully, people are going to recognize that, and jump right in to help you,” says May matter-of-factly, noting that many resources, like Health Care for the Homeless and Our Daily Bread, are located on the city’s east side. “At least that’s what my experience has been.”

In fact, in her second week serving in Penn North, Brandon “Coach” Campbell popped his head out of the Phase 2 Barbershop and offered exactly that. May calls him her co-founder, and the two hit it off immediately, with “Coach” educating her about the neighborhood, introducing her to community members, and always encouraging her to keep going.

Soon, she added volunteers, moved to a commercial kitchen, and eventually met “Kyeez,” a Crust by Mack alum and multi-generation Baltimorean with family in nearby Sandtown-Winchester, who joined the nonprofit last fall.

“Saturdays?” poses Young. “It’s a vibe.”

On that day, every week, just before noon, rain or shine, the Love & Cornbread crew sets up outside of Phase 2, where hugs, high-fives, and how-are-yous are exchanged as they hand out hundreds of soups, sandwiches, and, of course, cornbread, all scratch-made with quality ingredients—including produce from the So What Else regional food redistribution nonprofit and local growers like the Rock Rose Food Justice Project and First Fruits Farm.

“This is my most prized possession,” says Young, holding her cell phone close to chest, then pulling up a photograph of an elderly woman, standing in the sun on the city street, eyes closed, savoring that namesake treat. “It felt like feeding my grandmother. This is our corner, you know what I mean?”

Over time, some of those same folks in line have also started volunteering to serve, which May calls “the greatest compliment.” Beyond food, the nonprofit offers other essentials, too, such as hand warmers in the winter and cool rags in the summer. And in a neighborhood hit by the opioid epidemic, they also partner with the state of Maryland to provide Narcan overdose treatment, as well as information about the nearby Tuerk House for recovery.

“It’s a natural extension of our work,” says May, who retired as an education consultant last summer to focus full-time on Love & Cornbread. “Food is harm reduction.”

This spring, they hope to add a lunch catering service to the nonprofit’s offerings—with proceeds allowing them to hire more kitchen support, produce more food, and make a greater impact—while also partnering with the Franciscan Center for culinary externships. A retail cornbread mix might be in the works as well.

But why cornbread, of all things?

“It’s always been a comfort food for me—it’s warm, buttery, salty, sweet,” says May, whose mother grew up in Tennessee and made it regularly. “It’s not your entrée. It’s not your vegetable. Maybe it’s your dessert. But it’s just that little something extra that someone does to make you feel loved. And I think that’s pretty universal.”

This piece appeared in our April 2024 issue. For more great Baltimore stories, consider becoming a subscriber.