Derek Godshall ’16 visits once a week to help the Eckerd College Community Farm due critical maintenance. Photos by Izzy Wild Merl ’28
Derek Godshall ’16 first joined Eckerd College’s Garden Club in 2012 during the spring of his first year, when it was a small, loosely organized effort—far from the thriving food forest students know today.
“I just kind of came out on a whim and got more and more interested in it,” he says. This interest grew, and by his sophomore year, he had quickly become one of its co-presidents.
Originally from Souderton, Pennsylvania, and now living in St. Petersburg, the international relations and global affairs and French graduate works as a pickleball instructor and finds himself returning to the place where his passion for growing food began.
“It was super different back then,” he explains. “Just a ragtag group of people interested in gardening. We did a lot of failing, but it was a great learning experience and really changed my life.”
Though he began his studies majoring in marine science and environmental studies, hands-on work in the garden shifted his interests toward sustainable agriculture. That path led him to Burkina Faso in West Africa, where he and his wife spent more than three years working in sustainable agriculture
Derek Godshall ’16
Now back in St. Petersburg, Derek—a former honors student and Ford Scholar and a member of Phi Beta Kappa—spends one day a week tackling essential maintenance in Eckerd’s food forest, especially mulching and weed control. “This area grows so fast,” he explains. “If you don’t keep adding mulch at least once a year, the weeds just take over. Before the canopy fills in, you have to stay on top of it.”
He also enjoys reconnecting with a community he’s missed since college.
“I do a lot at home. I have a small food forest in my backyard and a few raised veggie beds, but it’s just me,” he says. “Here, it’s nice to work with people who are also interested in this.”
Derek recently contacted fellow Eckerd alum and former Garden Club president Samantha Haskell ’14, who hopes to start volunteering as well. Derek imagines a future where many alumni return when they can to support the farm that once was a garden they’d tended.
