Kinship Plot

06/11/2026

What has your attention been honing in on lately? Dare we say…fixating on?

We invite you to zoom in on the natural patterns of the food forest with us.

And, if you’d like, we’d love to read in the comments what you notice or feel sitting with these images.

It’s even better in person if you want to visit the Food Forest, she is there waiting for you!

Pictured: Sunflower, Arugula bloom, lizard in comfrey, 4 coneflower colors, invasive beetle on hyssop, dandelion, lavender blossom, sedum T-Rex.

06/09/2026

The Kinship Plot team would love to invite you to join us for any (or all!) of our upcoming summer work days.

Swipe to see dates and times, and come for whatever portion of the day works for you. Whether you’re eager to get your hands in the soil, learn alongside others, or simply enjoy the beauty and abundance of the land, there’s a place for you here.

Please sign up through the link in our stories or the link in our bio so we know to expect you.

See you at the plot!

06/09/2026

The Kinship Plot team would love to invite you to join us for any (or all!) of our upcoming summer work days. 🌿☀️

Swipe to see dates and times, and come for whatever portion of the day works for you. Whether you’re eager to get your hands in the soil, learn alongside others, or simply enjoy the beauty and abundance of the land, there’s a place for you here.

Please sign up through the link in our stories or the link in our bio so we know to expect you!

See you at the Plot!

06/08/2026

A little glimpse of the culmination of our journey with LISC Charlotte’s Real Estate Developer Incubator Program, which concluded with a Shark Tank-style pitch event where we had the opportunity to present Kinship Plot’s affordable housing project to a room of community leaders, funders, and development professionals.

What a gift this experience has been.

We’re leaving with new knowledge, new relationships, and renewed excitement for Kinship Plot’s affordable housing initiative, which seeks to transform the land of The Grove Church into a place of stable housing, community care, and belonging.

So grateful to LISC Charlotte, our fellow cohort members, and everyone who continues to encourage and support this work along the way.

The dream of reimagining how we live with one another, with the land, and at home feels a little more possible today.

06/03/2026

Do you know the names of your other-than-human neighbors?

In a recent episode of the CCDA Podcast, Stephanie Vander Lugt and Amy Kuhl reflect on creation care and ecological discipleship, exploring how practices of knowing, loving, and being in relationship with creation can deepen our faith and reconnect us to the Spirit’s ongoing work of renewal in the particular places we inhabit in the world.

The conversation invites listeners to consider how ecological perspectives can be woven into justice work, ministry, and community development as we cultivate communities where people and places flourish together. Listen at the link in our bio (and stories!)

Thanks for curating this conversation,

05/29/2026

Hooray, Kinship Plot turns five this week. Help us meet our $5,000 birthday goal!

Help us celebrate Kinship Plot's five-year anniversary as a nonprofit! We are deeply grateful for all the people, places, and partners who have shaped Kinship Plot these past five years. It truly take a village to create stories, places, and beautiful schemes of rooted belonging!Your gift helps us c...

05/29/2026

For our final birthday post, we’re uplifting 5 WAYS TO CELEBRATE Kinship Plot! 🌿

🪴 Spend 5 hours volunteering with us. Volunteers are at the heart of Kinship Plot, and co-laboring in the gardens is often joyful, grounding, and meaningful. Join a garden workday or fill out the volunteer form on our website to share your gifts in other ways.

💛 Give $5, $15, $25, $50, $125, or any amount to help us reach our birthday goal of raising $5000—Every contribution of any size helps sustain and grow this work of rooted belonging.

👥 Tag 5 people who might resonate with Kinship Plot’s vision for affordable housing, cultivation, collaborative learning, creativity, and community life. We love making new connections.

🍵 Visit the Kinship Plot online shop! We’ve restocked handcrafted herbal products made with herbs grown in our gardens, and pre-orders are now open for this year’s seasonal tea blend.

✨ Finally, send us five or more words of encouragement—a blessing, poem, favorite line, or kind note. It goes a long way in sustaining this work and the people carrying it forward.

Thanks for celebrating with us, friends! 🌿

05/28/2026

As part of our five year birthday celebration week, today we’re celebrating 5 PARTNERS of Kinship Plot!

The Grove Church, a beautiful community in east Charlotte, is our core partner and a faith community that resources and motivates our work at the deepest level. We are deeply grateful for their commitment to lease a portion of their land to Kinship Plot as we build out our vision for rooted belonging through affordable housing, cultivation, and community life.

CROSS Mission has brought heart-centered labor to the food forest through volunteer teams who have dug, planted, harvested, and co-labored alongside neighbors and community volunteers.

Our Affordable Housing project relies on skilled partners who bring expertise, creativity, and deep commitment to this vision, including Forrest Geomatics, LandDesign, Nicole Perri Architecture, Robinson Bradshaw, and Berkeley Consulting. We’re also grateful for the support and partnership of Enterprise, the Faith in Housing initiative with the City of Charlotte, and LISC Charlotte as we work to create rooted, attainable housing in Charlotte.

Lake Forest Church (Westlake) in Denver, NC, has partnered with Kinship Plot in several beautiful ways. In addition to their financial support, Lake Forest brought a team of people to lead a community meal and volunteer in the gardens during their Love People Weekend, and they were a generous partner for one of our Oddkin Unite gatherings.

Warehouse 242 was Kinship Plot’s very first church partner and fiscal sponsor in our early days. They continue to support this work through events, collaborations, and hosting Oddkin Unite gatherings.

We are deeply grateful for everyone helping shape this growing ecosystem. Cheers to collaboration and partnership!

05/27/2026

As Kinship Plot continues celebrating our fifth birthday this week, today we’re highlighting five expressions of this growing work. While “programs” can sound a bit clinical, we experience each one as an overflow of who we are becoming together with a commitment to resonance, mutuality, and meaningful presence.

🏡 Our emerging Affordable Housing program is transforming underutilized church-owned land into a mixed-income community with 24 homes, shared green spaces, gathering places, supportive programming, and trauma-informed design that nurtures healing, connection, and stability in Charlotte’s housing continuum.

🌱 Our beloved Cultivation Program cares for both land and people through gardens, a food forest, ecological restoration, and hands-on learning that expands access to fresh food, gardening wisdom, and connection to the land.

🎨 Our Arts & Community programming is rooted in the belief that the arts help gather, nourish, and sustain community. Creativity is woven throughout Kinship Plot through commissioned artwork, shared spaces, learning cohorts, seasonal offerings, and Oddkin Unite experiences.

🍽️ Oddkin Unite brings together people who might not otherwise share space through curated art-and-dinner gatherings centered on hospitality, meaningful dialogue, creativity, and bridge-building across differences.

📚 Our Collaborative Learning program creates space to slow down, ask better questions, and grow together through cohorts, workshops, forest walks, contemplative practices, eco-somatic experiences, and retreats.

We hope to see you at an offering soon and thank you for celebrating this 5-year milestone with us!

05/26/2026

As we continue celebrating Kinship Plot’s fifth birthday, today we’re honoring 5 people + teams helping shape this work of rooted community and belonging.

Stephanie Vander Lugt is co-founder and co-Executive Director of Kinship Plot as well as a clinical social worker and therapist on the team . She champions Kinship Plot’s programs, leads the staff team, spends plenty of time in the gardens, and loves gathering eclectic people around the table.

Wes Vander Lugt is co-founder and co-Executive Director of Kinship Plot, a theology professor, writer and arts advocate. He helps lead the strategy and vision of Kinship Plot through his love of books, beauty, learning, and shared life.

Rebecca Hart is Kinship Plot’s Cultivation Program Manager, life coach, and director of the Firefly after-school program with . She oversees the cultivation program, Garden Apprenticeship, volunteer groups, and tending the food forest.

Ranika Chaney, Oddkin Unite Facilitator and Executive Director of and Anne Fischer, Oddkin Unite Coordinator and leader in early childhood education, have helped nurture and expand Oddkin Unite into a vibrant space of creativity, connection, and belonging. We also celebrate the growing network of volunteers and culture-keepers—too numerous to name—who help carry this work forward!

This summer we’re welcoming Garden Apprentices Aniya, Cora, and Simone, joining a growing lineage of apprentices—including Anna, Rebecca, Josue, David, Mejia, and Brittany—who have helped shape Kinship Plot through hands-on gardening, earthkeeping, and land-based community development.

Cheers to people of Kinship Plot! Cheers to YOU!

If you would like to help us meet our birthday goal, head to https://www.zeffy.com/en-US/donation-form/5-years-of-kinship-plot (link in bio and stories too!)