A Red Circle, a non-profit organization based in north county, opened its doors to a third space in Pine Lawn on April 10, 2025.
The space includes a community garden as well as a kitchen that hosts chefs who teach the community how to bake bread, store food, and other useful kitchen tips.
“It’s not just a skill that people learn,” founder and executive director Erica Williams said. “They learn that they belong in the healthy food system. They learn that it doesn’t matter body size or race.”
The organization will run its “Good Food Friday” event out of this space, allowing families and residents from all over the region to get vegetables for free.
“Oftentimes, when families are low income, food is put in a box and they’re given it, and they don’t have any choice, any agency,” Williams said. “They might not even know what it is or like what’s in there. But here, you know, it’s set up as a farmer’s market vibe, but also a space where people can just really belong. And then people learn here, too.”
The building, a small red house, sits on a hill overlooking the garden. The contractors renovated a dilapidated home, and are hoping to create more space in a dilapidated building next door.
The building has been in the restoration process since 2020. Roderick M. Gilliam II said he saw the building from the beginning.
“When we found the building, I took a look at it and said, ‘Okay, there’s some potential here.’” Gilliam said. “And then once we went on the inside, I had to use my objective point of view, and my recommendation, after about a half an hour walk through, was like, ‘Dad, yeah, we gonna have to tear this down.’”
Community Garden Director Erin Tyus said the amount of work that was put in for the building to be open for business was well worth it to provide the community with a space unlike any other in the town.
“It’s not just food, we serve as a third space for the community,” Tyus said. “And areas like this don’t have a lot of third spaces, so they either go to work, come home, go to church, come home, and that’s it. So this kind of series is a third space for when we have our Good Food Friday people come. It’s like the intergenerational exchange that happens.”
The organization plants a variety of vegetables including greens, beets, broccoli, and cauliflower. Head farmer Eric Williams, the eldest of Erica Williams’ children, said keeping the garden alive can be difficult without the use of pesticides and herbicides. Still, he doesn’t give up because he said it’s his purpose.
“You’d be surprised the little amount you harvest is actually a lot,” he said. “That’s what makes this type of work very worth it.”
Tyus said the first Good Food Friday will be held at the facility at 4521 Hamilton Ave. She said money from the county is disproportionately allocated to areas such as Pine Lawn, and the goal of the organization is to eradicate food insecurity in North county. Good Food Fridays serve over 12 zip codes in North County.
“If you go over there, it looks like a third world. So that’s why we do it,” Tyus said. “That’s why we’re here. We want to address that because we all grew up here, all of us are from North County.”