KATIES IN ACTION FEATURE
Farm Fresh When a city girl embraces farming, her community eats well. BY ALVINA BRUEGGEMANN When Amy Doeun ’03 graduated from St. Kate’s with an English degree, she never guessed she would become a farmer. She lived the typical “city girl” life, complete with her pick of Twin Cities’ restaurants, vibrant nightlife and skyscrapers. She edited the newsletter in St. Kate’s English department, and wanted to become a writer. However, in her junior year, Doeun’s life took a sharp turn when she met her husband, Proeun, a Cambodian immigrant in Minneapolis.
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ST. CATHERINE UNIVERSITY • FALL 2016
“We had a kind of whirlwind romance,” recalls Doeun. “We were engaged in 10 days, married 9 months later and had our first baby 11 months after that.” It was that child, a happy little boy with a love for garden plants and sunshine, who inspired their Crazy Boy Farm in Rush City, Minnesota. Neither Doeun nor her husband had ever owned a farm. However, farming was in their DNA: her Minnesotan grandparents and Proeun’s parents were farmers. The couple attended the Minnesota Farm Association’s New Immigrant Farmer Training Program in 2009, and in three years learned how to turn backyard gardening into full-scale community-supported agriculture, or CSA, which connects urban dwellers to fresh produce and gives farmers a steady source of income.