The six concrete carrots popping out of the ground there range from four to ten feet in height. Their actual address is 1 Carrot Way, and they belong to Food Gatherers of Washtenaw County—a food bank and food rescue program founded in 1988. “Planted” in their current location since 2013, they were created by a man who made a living designing miniature golf courses—and he must have eaten his veggies as a tot because these carrots are an artistic hole in one: They are big enough to remind drivers passing by to appreciate the food they have and cheerful enough to remind them we should always help the less fortunate.
Locals love the orange sculptures, and tourists do, too. And so it was that not long ago, the higher-ups at Food Gatherers began making plans to see their tall orange symbols given some much needed upkeep attention. Ten years of harsh Michigan winters had bled away their color and begun to nibble away at their cement. And that’s when the company learned how widespread appreciation for its sculptures actually was.
The company received an email inquiry—out of the blue—from Calista Dillon of Sinclair College in Dayton, Ohio. Not only was she interested in restoring the carrots for a senior project, but she was skilled in working with cement and had even received an award for a ceramic fruit sculpture in a juried art show. The arrangement was so serendipitous that Food Gatherers’ CEO Eileen Spring says, “I thought I was being pranked by a coworker.”
Dillon, a fan of quirky roadside attractions, had heard about the carrots online. She’d made the three-hour drive to Ann Arbor and seen the ailing state they were in. “I was thinking they needed to be saved before winter,” she told the Detroit Free Press. “My brain automatically looks at something broken and ceramic and says ‘I can fix that.’”
Food Gatherers gave Dillon the greenlight to fix their prized sculptures, and she set to work. In the course of one weekend, she had the concrete carrots scrubbed, repaired, repainted in a vibrant shade of orange with light and dark accents, and weather-proofed. On the freshly refurbished skin of one of the carrots, she added the inscription love the carrots, love the cause as a philosophical signature.
“This was a dream come true for me,” Dillon told reporters. “I didn’t want to leave them. It’s almost like they’re my babies now.”
To Food Gatherers, these giant vegetables transcend gimmickry. According to Spring, “Carrots are more than just our logo. They are a versatile, tasty vegetable, nutritious and practical, and they have deep roots. They represent who we are as an organization.”
Now, eat your vegetables.
Find this article and much more in the Summer 2025 edition of AMERICAN ROAD.
