What we do
Two problems. One solution.
Food deserts and mass incarceration are not separate issues. They are the same system, expressing itself in two directions. We work at the intersection — growing food in the communities that need it most, and creating real jobs for the people those same systems have most aggressively excluded.
Program 01
Community Gardens
Fresh food where it's needed most.
We identify neighborhoods classified as food deserts — places where the nearest full-service grocery store is more than a mile away for urban residents — and we build community gardens there. Not demonstration plots. Not educational installations. Working gardens that produce real food and put it directly in the hands of the people who live nearby.
Every garden is designed with and by the community it serves. We hold listening sessions before we break ground. We train local residents to maintain the space. We establish distribution systems so the harvest reaches households that need it, not just the people who happen to walk by. The goal is not a garden. The goal is a neighborhood that feeds itself.
What we grow
Collard greens, sweet potatoes, tomatoes, peppers, herbs, and whatever the community tells us they actually cook.
22 lbs
Harvested so far
2
Active garden sites
100%
Distributed free
Program 02
Workforce Development
Second chances start in the soil.
We hire and train people returning from incarceration in urban farming, landscaping, and food production. Not as a charity program. As a workforce strategy. The people this system has most aggressively excluded are often the most motivated, most resilient workers we have ever met. They deserve real wages, real skills, and real futures.
Participants complete a paid training program covering soil science, crop management, irrigation, composting, and small-scale food production. Graduates leave with a certification, a work history, and a network of people who will vouch for them. We also provide navigation support: help with housing, transportation, and the bureaucratic maze that follows a record.
What we offer
Paid training, industry certification, job placement support, and a reference that means something.
0
Jobs created so far
(we're just getting started)
Paid
Training from day one
0
Degree required
Program 03
Community Education
Understanding the roots of the problem.
Food deserts did not happen by accident. Mass incarceration did not happen by accident. The conditions that make both possible were built deliberately, over decades, through policy decisions that most people were never told about. We believe that understanding how a problem was created is essential to solving it.
Through workshops, community conversations, and our Roots blog, we connect the dots between redlining and grocery store deserts, between the war on drugs and the workforce participation gap, between neighborhood disinvestment and public health outcomes. We do not lecture. We have conversations — because the people most affected by these systems already understand them better than most academics do.
What we offer
Free community workshops, the Roots blog, and honest conversations about systems most people would rather not name.
3
Roots essays published
Free
Always and forever
0
Jargon required
How we work
Community-designed. Community-operated.
We do not arrive with a plan and ask people to participate in it. We arrive with a question: what does this neighborhood actually need? The answer shapes everything — where we build, what we grow, who we hire, how we distribute. This is not a program delivered to a community. It is a program built by one.
Listen first
Every site begins with community listening sessions. We do not break ground until we understand what the neighborhood wants and what it already has.
Hire local
We prioritize hiring from the communities we serve, with explicit preference for returning citizens and people who have been excluded from traditional employment.
No gatekeeping
No applications. No income verification. No proof of need. If you live here, the garden is yours. If you want to work, we want to talk to you.
Measure what matters
Pounds of food. Jobs held at six months. Households reached. Not grant metrics. Real ones.
"The goal is not a garden. The goal is a neighborhood that feeds itself."
Get involved in the work.
Whether you want to volunteer in a garden, support the workforce program, or just show up and dig, there is a place for you here.