In 1997, Noel Jones started cleaning up an unused yard behind the Sixth Street Baptist Church. Earl Antwine, hesitant at first, soon joined in with Jones and used his farming skills to turn the unused land into a small but flourishing garden. Jones and Antwine's work on the garden, which was initially meant to attract adults and their families, attracted the attention of boys from the St. Thomas Housing Project, located only blocks away from the church.

Slowly the garden became a haven for these young men, offering a place to learn responsibility and the ethics of hard work, while helping the community at the same time. The boys received a donation of chickens and the garden continued to become more and more popular. Eventually, more than 30 boys, ages six to nine years old, started working at the garden.

Then Parkway Partners, a division of the New Orleans parks office, rewarded the boys with a $18,000 grant after the boys developed the St. Thomas Seven Pepper Sauce, which helped turn the community garden into a nonprofit that would feed more than 1,500 of the area poor each month. Vegetables, chickens, rabbits, and ducks raised on the farm would be donated for community meals.

Hurricane Katrina destroyed the garden and many of the animals were never located after being evacuated by PITA. Earl and Noel had to start all over. Many of the boys that had worked the garden are still displaced. But with help from Loyola University student volunteers and food donations from Second Harvest, Earl, Noel and the boys reestablished the garden and acquired new animals. God's Vineyard continues to produce peppers for the hot sauce and food for the community once again.