Norfolk woman is a grassroots problem solver

So many things keep Bev Sell awake at night.

There's that new, half-inch-thick document from the feds titled "Good Agricultural Practices." Will her farmers take time to read it?

There's a ton of kitchen scraps being dumped into trash cans all over Norfolk. Shouldn't all that garbage be used to make local fields more fertile?

There's the aging of America's farmers. Don't you hear the clock ticking?

There's global warming. Race relations. World peace, too.

Weighty issues that seem bigger than the sky.

"But if it just doesn't seem fair or right, it's in my DNA to question it," said Sell, 63, general manager of Five Points Community Farm Market in Norfolk. "That's what keeps me awake at night. What if I don't do something about it?"

Sell's chronic activism is most evident in the farm market, which took root 10 years ago in a field in Norview and now occupies a brick depot on Church Street.

Monday night, the humble market will go Hollywood. An episode of Guy Fieri's "Diners, Drive-ins and Dives," filmed in the spring, will air at 9 p.m. on the Food Network.

The network warned Sell and Nic Renz, chef and cafe manager, to expect a 400 percent increase in business at its Get Fresh Cafe after the show. That's sent them stockpiling food and flatware to handle it all.

"It's either the smartest thing we've done - or the dumbest," said Sell, who is decidedly not starstruck.

Bev Sell, she's a grassroots girl.

When Sell was 9, she puffed on a cigarette in Cradock, the Portsmouth, blue-collar neighborhood where she was raised. By the time she reached home, three people had told her mom.

Cradock, built by the government to house World War I shipyard workers, was a neighborhood with streets in the shape of an anchor. Sell could walk from her house to the town square, theater, library, post office and school.

Her dad, Ralph Sell, operated cranes at the nearby shipyard. Her mom, Helen, stayed at home and frequently cooked meals for elderly neighbors.

Cradock's values were visible: hard work, a tight community, a commitment of neighbor to neighbor.

After graduating from Cradock High School, class of '69, Sell studied art at Virginia Commonwealth University for a year and then returned home.

A stint at the then-fledgling Christian Broadcasting Network in Portsmouth led to a short time as a technical illustrator ("I'd rather chew glass") and then a job at a Norfolk advertising firm, where her duties included handing the boss a cup of hot coffee at a quarter to nine each morning.

One day, Sell requested a $5-a-week raise to buy a used car.

"Well, Bev," he said. "I don't think you've done bad for a woman."

"Would you like one or two weeks' notice?" Sell quipped, quitting the best job she'd ever had. It was her 23rd birthday.

No matter. Sell started her own advertising agency. It thrived, but her social life withered.

No matter. She and a friend started Fun U., a for-profit venture offering classes in wine, jazz and other pursuits. The pair, dressed in preppy collegiate sweaters, made the cover of the alternative PortFolio Weekly in 1987.

Pressing on, Sell started the Hampton Roads Singles Society to help fellow workaholics meet friends. On car trips, members switched passengers every few miles. At dinners, they changed seats with each course. The club traveled to Europe and the Caribbean. Sell organized a series called "Guerrilla Dating Techniques for the '90s." In 12 years, 42 members joined in matrimony, which wasn't the goal.

Before one marriage, Sell planned a party where the couple surrendered their little black books. The bride's book was a tiny affair, supplied by Sell. The groom's was a phone book, its covers painted black.

"I told them, 'This has got to stop,' " she said.

By then, Sell was living in Estabrook, a neighborhood in Norfolk's Norview section. Norview reminded Sell of Cradock, with its small shopping district, modest houses, nearby school and tree-lined streets.

But decline was evident in the empty storefronts, rising crime numbers and dwindling community spirit.

Her DNA kicked in.

In 1996, Sell sat down with a group of community members at the Norview McDonald's to form the Five Points Partnership. Representatives from churches, schools, public safety organizations, businesses and the city signed a pledge to work together to revitalize Norview.

Two years later, crime inched downward, residents rallied at city council meetings, and Norview High's tradition of a grand homecoming parade had been rekindled.

From the start, Sell was a leader, albeit an impatient one. When city leaders formed a task force to study a list of recommendations from the coalition, Sell saw it as nothing more than a way to stall.

She was thrilled when the group finally got permission to plant and maintain a garden at the "Five Points" intersection, but chided officials for taking two years to grant it.

"We've butted heads," said Norfolk Vice Mayor Anthony L. Burfoot, "but I know we want the same things for the city. She has strong opinions like I do."

The farm market opened in a field in 2001, moved into a former self-service laundry the following year, operated a sister site downtown in 2006 and 2007, and moved to its Church Street location in 2008.

Through it all, there has been a legion of volunteers, but Sell has been the driving force, making the market a welcoming place for neighbors to shop, small businesses to start and ideas to percolate.

"She's a firecracker," said Jen St. Clair of Virginia Beach, who has worked alongside Sell at the market. "She doesn't believe in 'I can't.' 'I can do' is the only thing she believes."

Today, Sell is the market's general manager, a year-round, 60-hour-a-week job that pays $24,000.

As her role has changed, so have her tactics.

Tommy Smigiel worked with Sell as a student leader back when the coalition was reigniting Norview High's homecoming celebration. As a city councilman, he considers her community insights invaluable.

In the beginning, Sell "was a little polarizing, vocal," Smigiel said. "Now, she's more of a silent warrior."

As an example, he pointed to the City Council's approval this month of an ordinance allowing Norfolk residents to keep bees and raise chickens for eggs. Sell wasn't at the meeting, yet Smigiel sensed her influence.

"Really," he said, "it's because of the energy Bev has created with the farm market and all the other things she does that people are getting involved politically."

On Tuesday, Sell drove to Surry to meet with Clifton Slade, a market supplier who she thinks could be key in addressing some of the issues that steal her sleep.

Slade is helping to plan the upcoming farmers' resource fair, where Sell will have experts on hand to decode that half-inch-thick document from the feds.

Slade's 285-acre farm also figures into the compost issue. Sell's idea is to supply buckets to members of the farm market's weekly CSA, a sort of produce club. When members pick up their produce each week, they can drop off buckets of kitchen scraps for compost. In Slade's fields, the compost could turn into rich, fertile soil.

The farm also might play a part in solving the problem of America's aging farmers. She envisions a place where local kids could come to live for a few weeks, rising with the sun, harvesting eggs, raising food, cooking meals, growing crops, raising bees and making their own beds.

"This is coming together eventually," Sell said earlier this month, as she dashed off for a makeshift farm market at Old Dominion University. "After, we get the cannery going."

Lorraine Eaton, (757) 446-2697, lorraine.eaton@pilotonline.com.

For behind-the-scenes details of the Guy Fieri filming, check out her blog at http://hamptonroads.com/blogs/lorraine-eaton