South Side Farms continues work, names new executive director

South Side Farms, a community-led urban farm at 900 S. West End Blvd. in Cape Girardeau, has announced the hiring of its first executive director.

Maurice Theriot, a master gardener at Lincoln University of Missouri in Jefferson City, will begin his new role with South Side Farms on Wednesday, May 1.

The farm’s director of operations and project manager, Wyky Jean, said the board of directors was wowed by Theriot’s leadership presence and communication style.

“I think Maurice might be overqualified for the role, when you look at his resume and look at his experience,” Jean said. “He has a great background in finance and also a master’s in business administration. His heart and his passion is in eating healthy and teaching everybody else that they can have a green thumb.”

Theriot had previously started a faith-based educational initiative to educate people on becoming less resilient on corporate supply chains. As someone who had prior experience teaching others about farming, he became the ideal candidate out of the half dozen or so applicants.

“I think that’s just what we need from a captain, from a quarterback, to take South Side Farms to where we think it can go for our region,” Jean said.

Theriot, as someone with a business degree and financial acumen, would have the ability not only to raise money for the farm but to make sure it is sustainable as well.

“We really wanted to find the right person for this role, especially in its infancy,” Jean said. “I’d say we’ve come a long way in the last three years … but we’re at that point where we need someone with that experience to help us scale it.”

Three years ago, South Side Farms was just an idea. Since then, it has grown to a full acre of crops. This has been possible through grant funding, volunteer work and the efforts of Jean, former interim executive director Jimmy Wilferth, farm manager Jake Smith and the board of directors.

“Now, going in our third year, we’re talking about more infrastructure development. How do we accommodate our community on this site and make it a great place for people to come and have a wonderful experience,” Jean said. “It’s only been 36 months, but we’ve been pushing this mission because we know there’s a lot of people we need to feed and a lot of people we need to educate as well.”

Jean said Smith had told him he’d never seen an urban farm grow so quickly even after a decade of experience.

Momentum is growing at the farm with plenty of community support and equipment such as tractors and rakes arriving. Jean said the community is supportive of the endeavor.

“When you think about the mission of South Side Farms, we’re trying to teach a man how to fish. That’s what Jimmy (Wilferth) and I talked about in 2021 when we thought this would be a good idea for Cape,” he said.

Jean added he thought Theriot was coming to the farm at the best possible time.