JONESBORO, Ark. (AP) - Elizabeth Smith, a 33-year-old woman with cerebral palsy, was the inspiration for Gravel Road Goodies, a Jonesboro business that offers specialty foods and custom-made household items and embraces disabled adults.
“It’s a hobby for Elizabeth and me,” Elizabeth’s mother, Susan Smith, said. “It evolved into a ministry.”
After her other three children were grown and out of the house, Smith said she started looking for a regular activity involving Elizabeth. The children were raised on a farm near Brookland by their parents Lindley and Susan Smith and trained in barrel racing and other rodeo skills. A wheel-chair bound Elizabeth was limited in her abilities.
“I prayed for a way to use the farm for her - something easy for her to handle,” she said.
Tying into the theme of farm life, Smith turned to longtime family recipes on a hunch that other people would enjoy them as much as she does.
Smith chose the name for the business because the road where the family’s house is located was on a gravel road before it was paved.
“The Lord just gave us that name,” she said.
She set out to find a niche or a staple food item for the company. She settled on a family favorite - Swedish nuts - but changed the name to gravel road bites, a food that would become sort of a calling card for Gravel Road Goodies.
“It’s down home and rural with an upscale, whimsical flair,” she said. “We make gourmet foods and housekeeping specialties.”
The gourmet foods include: Momma’s chocolate gravy, black ’n’ blue all over blueberry muffins, pineapple skillet cake, buttermilk banana bread and dirt clods, also called chocolate truffles.
Another ingredient that made Smith’s recipe for success work was direction from the Lord.
“I prayed and the company evolved from there,” she said.
Staying with the gravel road-farm theme, Smith decided to include household specialty items, such as stamped tea towels and note cards, handmade soap, goat milk soap and lotion and flour sacks.
Many ingredients used are farm fresh - eggs from the hens, milk from Nigerian dwarf milk goats and blueberries for the muffins.
They buy wheat locally, and Elizabeth helps grind it into flour by operating the mixer switch. The hard, red winter wheat is combined with a hard, spring white wheat, yeast, oil and honey for bread loaves, Smith said.
“Weekly, we make two loaves,” she said.
Grinding the wheat flour is a job Elizabeth can do that lets her have control, a feeling she rarely encounters, her mother said.
Smith started selling her wares at a booth at a flea market in Hardy, but soon expanded to Etsy, an online site where handmade and vintage items are bought and sold, the Arkansas State University Regional Farmers Market and Rustic Charm, 3907 E. Nettleton Ave. She’s trying to figure out what works best and at which locations products made at Sun Ridge Farms should be placed.
An out-of-state client who found Gravel Road Goodies on Etsy ordered 70 loaves of banana bread for her company’s employees at Christmastime, Smith said. And that’s the type of orders that can give her sustainability.
The founding of the company led to Smith establishing the Barnabas Group, a ministry for adults with special needs. Part of the proceeds go to the charity. Barnabas means encourager, and the name fits for the type of group that would benefit from working with the ministry. In addition to Elizabeth, three disabled adults from Smith’s church, Fellowship Bible Church, 1801 Woodsprings Road, participate in Barnabas projects. Special-needs adults participate by coloring and stamping note cards, stamping tea towels and labeling products.
“Part of this is to give them something to see from start to finish,” Smith said. “Our mission is to help those in our group not to serve special-needs people, but to help special-needs people - to get them doing something comfortable in a safe place.”
Part of the ministry includes a monthly Friday at the farm that’s just getting started. Events for special-needs adults and a parent or caregiver are held. For example, they might have a theme of caring for the birds and include activities, such as learning Bible lessons, making bird feeders out of tea cups and sharing multi-seed muffin snacks.
Sales of the baked goods also have funded events, such as a Christian concert at the farm three years ago for 250 disabled individuals.
What Smith is doing in Jonesboro is timely, she said, because there is a growing population of disabled adults.
“A lot of them are in front of the TV, especially some on the autistic spectrum,” said Smith, whose background is in occupational therapy. “They’re not employable. That’s kind of our heart. They can appreciate something from start to finish.”
Smith said she expects the Lord will continue to lead her down the path he chooses, and she’s hopeful that includes refining and expanding the 5-year-old business and the Barbabas Group ministry.
“I hope the call for products will let us be self-sustaining,” she said.
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Information from: The Jonesboro Sun, https://www.jonesborosun.com
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