As you drive down Linden Avenue near downtown Dothan, you are surrounded by unassuming homes strung with rocking chairs on open porches allowing neighbors to be neighbors. The street beckons of days gone by with its closeness and comfort.

Until you get to 602 Linden Avenue – where you are treated to a different sight. It may look like a regular garden at first glance, but if you look hard among the tomatoes, squash, pepper, and eggplant shrubs, you may be able to spot something bigger at play.

The garden is full of love.

Aunt Katies garden seeds love into other’s lives from Alabama NewsCenter on Vimeo.

It is only half an acre, but it looks like an oasis of sorts, loaded with flower boxes and manicured plots full of vegetables, fruits, melons and even sugar cane.

“The garden started in 2010 as a way to build awareness for childhood obesity in the community,” said Michael Jackson, director of Aunt Katie’s Community Garden. “It makes you ask the question, ‘How do we learn what to eat?’ With Alabama’s childhood obesity rate being one of the highest in the nation due to lack of food education, this garden exists as a way to teach, entertain and inspire. The children and their families enjoy the harvest and learn about healthy eating.”

Jackson was beaming with humble pride as he showed off the beautiful, lush garden full of just about everything you can grow in the South. Then he took me to a corner full of white bee boxes.

“Don’t come any closer,” Jackson said, “not without cover.”

I decided not to chance it.

The garden was named after “Aunt Katie” Kirkland, who ran a daycare center across the street for 35 years. She would cook a huge Sunday meal and year after year the entire neighborhood converged on her home for food and fellowship. She was known all over the area for her sweetness and humor.

“A number of children spent time in her kitchen, and as she got older and retired from the daycare business, she began to cook a full meal every Sunday. I believe a garden like this is a good memorial to her and to what she meant to the community and her life’s work with cooking,” Jackson said.

Aunt Katie’s Garden has become a popular attraction for organizations to send their youngsters to educate them early about healthy eating while engaged in horticulture and farming in the middle of the city.

“They come here from boys and girls clubs, from schools, from churches. It could be a vacation bible school, a camp, or just to give the kids an understanding of what real food is,” Jackson said.

Jackson has a personal motivation for running the garden. He has long been a strong spokesperson for healthy eating and for sustainable living. He pushed for awareness on the problem of childhood obesity and invoked policy changes at the state level.

“I have always been a strong advocate of public health issues and childhood obesity in particular. It is a problem that needs lots of love,” Jackson said.

Love is what Aunt Katie’s Garden provides for Dothan. Oh, yeah . . . and food.

Alabama Bright Lights captures the stories, through words, pictures and video, of some of our state’s brightest lights who are working to make Alabama an even better place to live, work and play. Award-winning photojournalist Karim Shamsi-Basha tells their inspiring stories. Email him comments, as well as suggestions on people to profile, at karimshamsibasha@gmail.com.