My boyfriend and I watched a TED talk a few weeks ago, as we often do with our morning coffee, and we came across this exhilarating talk by Renegade Ron Finley. He is a guerilla gardener in South Central LA, which as Ron puts it, "is home of the drive-thru and the drive-by." Needless to say, South Central was not a place that I was ever encouraged to hang out while living in L.A.. Ron also describes this area as a "food desert," with healthy organic food options unavailable, resulting in an abundance of obese people in his community. One day he realized that "Food is the problem and food is the solution." So he began planting a garden in front of his house, which lead to a fight and ultimate victory with the the city of Los Angeles to use and plant on unused city property.
He started a grass-roots organization called L.A. Green Grounds in the South Los Angeles area, that focuses on the education and implantation of new gardens all around the community. He believes "To change the community, you have the change the composition of the soil. We are the soil." Through the education of gardening, his gospel is aimed at the prevention of poor health and crime.
My boyfriend and I really enjoyed this enthusiastic, unpretentious and just fucking cool talk from Ron Finley. Here are some quotes from Ron's speech at Ted, that invigorated and inspired me to share this with you.
"Growing your own food is like printing your own money."
"You see I'm an artist, gardening is my graffiti, I grow my art...You'd be surprised, what the soil can do, if you let it be your canvas. You just couldn't imagine how amazing a sunflower is and how it affects people."
"Gardening is the most therapeutic and DEFIANT act you can do, especially in the inner city…plus you get strawberries."
"We've got to flip the script on what a gangster is, if you ain't a gardener, you ain't gangster. Get gangster with your shovel and let that be your weapon of choice."
Check out his TED Talk!
Before and after pictures from a garden planted at a residence in the South Los Angeles area by Ron Finley and his team at L.A. Green Grounds.
No comments:
Post a Comment