Speaker 1: Positively gam is sponsored by Basiline. See how they are
Speaker 1: working towards equitable skin care for all at basiline dot com.
Speaker 1: I love Jamiah that you have your daughter in the
Speaker 1: garden with you, Like that touched my heart. But she's adorable.
Speaker 1: Let me let me tell you. But I agree. I
Speaker 1: found pictures and I agree. Yeah, she's adorable. Oh my goodness.
Speaker 1: And then just just see her helping you in the garden. Yes, yes,
Speaker 1: there are many times, you know, she finds her own
Speaker 1: philosophies from the garden to She's like, when we're upset
Speaker 1: about something, She's like, Daddy, maybe we go to the garden.
Speaker 1: You know, she understands how the mental health plays into it.
Speaker 1: Like she'll explore foods. She discovered that you can eat
Speaker 1: some of these caloru seeds just directly, so she goes
Speaker 1: for it right away. I didn't even know it. You know,
Speaker 1: children can teach us oh so much. What's up, everybody.
Speaker 1: I'm Gammy and this is positively gamp. Every week I
Speaker 1: try to have fraw and in depth conversation with inspirational
Speaker 1: people pushing for change on everything from aging, relationships, politics, wellness,
Speaker 1: to the current issues facing the black community. In this episode,
Speaker 1: we're going to be discussing food inequities in the inner
Speaker 1: cities and communities and in our schools. This week's guests
Speaker 1: are Jemaiah E. Hargans and Ashley C. Board. Jemaiah is
Speaker 1: an entrepreneur and founder of Crop Swap l A. Crop
Speaker 1: Swap unites gardeners across Los Angeles to grow and share
Speaker 1: their extra produce with each other and the community. Beside him,
Speaker 1: we have Ashley. She is a writer, host, and educator.
Speaker 1: Her memoir Somebody's Daughter will be out on June one,
Speaker 1: and you can check out the lovely piece she wrote
Speaker 1: on Vice President and let Kamala Harris that is in
Speaker 1: the November edition of L magazine. Ashley is the host
Speaker 1: of the podcast The Chronicles of Now and co host
Speaker 1: of the HBO podcast Lovecraft Country Radio. Without Lovecraft Country,
Speaker 1: I wouldn't know what was going on in love Craft.
Speaker 1: Let me just tell you, Lovecraft is one of my
Speaker 1: favorite shows. But you know, I really really needed your help,
Speaker 1: and I didn't even realize. In the beginning. I was fine,
Speaker 1: but then as things went on, I was like, wait
Speaker 1: a minute, there's there's a lot going on here. There's
Speaker 1: a lot of meaningful stuff going on here that I
Speaker 1: think I'm missing, So thank you guys for that. And
Speaker 1: I have to tell you that when the show returns,
Speaker 1: we will have to have you back on. I'll be
Speaker 1: back ever you want me to come back, Gammy. It
Speaker 1: could be about Lovecraft country or yellow sweaters. I'll be
Speaker 1: back to have a conversation with you. Thank you so
Speaker 1: much for saying that. I have so much fun making
Speaker 1: that podcast. Absolutely well, welcome both of you to positively
Speaker 1: gam But I want to just ask how are you
Speaker 1: both doing during the pandemic. Let's start with you, Jamaya.
Speaker 1: How's it going for you? It's going, It's going okay. Actually,
Speaker 1: you know, I've learned a lot about overcoming challenges in
Speaker 1: this pandemic. To be honest, I've been learning the practice
Speaker 1: of finding solutions in this pandemic. They seem to come
Speaker 1: up every day in some new form, new challenges, internal, external,
Speaker 1: related to the business, related to life, and really the
Speaker 1: only true lesson is on how to be creative and
Speaker 1: how to keep going. So that's what I've been focusing on,
Speaker 1: and that's the strain of strength for me. Awesome, what
Speaker 1: about you, Ashley? I love imagine Maiah first of all,
Speaker 1: I really love what you said because I feel similarly
Speaker 1: in that quarantine. I have been, you know, both privileged
Speaker 1: and lucky enough to continue to work and to continue
Speaker 1: to be okay. My family has some of members have
Speaker 1: contracted COVID, but so far everybody has made it. Everybody's recovering,
Speaker 1: everybody's doing okay. For me, this has been a real
Speaker 1: practice in imagination and in my own belief in the
Speaker 1: power of imagination, because I definitely believed in the power
Speaker 1: of imagination, but this proved to me how much that
Speaker 1: one thing can change things all around you, inside and out. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so true, so true. Well, let's dive right in because
Speaker 1: structural racism, these issues have been ongoing for us for generations,
Speaker 1: and I think that now really they're being accentuated in
Speaker 1: the pandemic. And I feel like because of the the
Speaker 1: deadly violence that we have had to deal with almost
Speaker 1: on a daily basis, police brutality has taken center stage.
Speaker 1: But we cannot we cannot lose sight of those other
Speaker 1: issues that are debatably have a more subtle effect on
Speaker 1: the community, but just as important, like the inequities and
Speaker 1: accessing quality education, housing, quality healthcare. And then what we
Speaker 1: really want to discuss today is poor access to nutritional foods.
Speaker 1: And I think Jamiah, that's where you really come in,
Speaker 1: because access to food has been unequal in America for
Speaker 1: a long long time before the pandemic, but this has
Speaker 1: just deepened the problem. So Jemaiah, you're on a mission
Speaker 1: to use gardening as a way to weed out systemic racism.
Speaker 1: And let me just stop for a minute and just
Speaker 1: say the reason how I found Jemiah was I saw
Speaker 1: a wonderful piece that you did on Spectrum one with
Speaker 1: Giselle Fernandez, and I was like, I have got to
Speaker 1: talk to this young man, because what you're doing is amazing.
Speaker 1: So tell me how this even came about. Oh well,
Speaker 1: thank you so much. And I have to say, it's
Speaker 1: in the spirit of our ancestors that I am here today.
Speaker 1: And I know that not just from my own DNA
Speaker 1: tests and finding out that my ancestors were some of
Speaker 1: the founders of the concept of share cropping back in
Speaker 1: the Iberian Peninsula and in the Moorish more civilizations, but
Speaker 1: also in my more recent family. My grandmother she used
Speaker 1: to grow food for her family. They had like seven
Speaker 1: or eight kids, you know, up in Fresnel, California, doing
Speaker 1: what they could with animals and pigs, and it was
Speaker 1: just you know, in their blood and in their kind
Speaker 1: of work ethic to create for themselves and to sustain
Speaker 1: for and by themselves. You know. So that's that's what
Speaker 1: set me up. That's what I had on day one.
Speaker 1: You know, I don't I don't even know you know,
Speaker 1: how I can ask to be blessed for more than
Speaker 1: that in terms of this mission for food. But then
Speaker 1: you know, flashed forward in my life and it came
Speaker 1: to a point in Chicago in college when community engagement
Speaker 1: was really important to me. There was a community garden
Speaker 1: of families, some newer to this this country that were immigrants,
Speaker 1: others that were more recently added, and all of these
Speaker 1: people loved good food, loved community, and introduced me to
Speaker 1: that concept of urban engagement through food. That shows me
Speaker 1: where all the inequities came from. Because the folks who
Speaker 1: were attracted to that movement tended to be low income,
Speaker 1: tended to not have property they owned, and they tended
Speaker 1: to not have jobs on paper per se. And so
Speaker 1: that opens up so many categories of of improving in
Speaker 1: our society. And it starts with food. So but but
Speaker 1: this is the thing for me because you you're you
Speaker 1: graduated from Columbia University, right, and weren't you working on
Speaker 1: Wall Street or something? That how did you get from
Speaker 1: Wall Street to having a garden to what what what
Speaker 1: I'm assumed was probably more financially beneficial to you and
Speaker 1: your family? So you're moving back to l a and
Speaker 1: starting a garden like what? Well, you know, And and
Speaker 1: I was I was a trader, That's correct. I was
Speaker 1: a trader with stocks, bonds, futures, options, mutual funds, and
Speaker 1: options on futures. Now here's the thing about race in trading, right,
Speaker 1: because we're going to connect all the dots. I did
Speaker 1: not earn a lot of money as a trader because
Speaker 1: I was brought in super low. So you know, if
Speaker 1: that financial incentive even had been there, still the cultural
Speaker 1: aspect of in that of in that that financial industry
Speaker 1: is still really there. Like the the chauvinistic white male
Speaker 1: dominant space nevertheless, irrespective of how smart or capable you
Speaker 1: can be, is still the dominant influence. And so you know,
Speaker 1: I did what I could for a few years and
Speaker 1: then actually what happened was my my wife then girlfriend,
Speaker 1: we decided to sell everything we own and moved to
Speaker 1: Brazil to work for a social enterprise at that point,
Speaker 1: so I got some international experience again, you know, learning Portuguese,
Speaker 1: but it was actually really useful in learning how a
Speaker 1: social enterprise operated, because now my organization, cropswop l A,
Speaker 1: operates like a social enterprise. They say this term triple
Speaker 1: bottom line, the idea that you can create economic value
Speaker 1: while helping the environment, while helping people, and that's what
Speaker 1: we aim to do. So really valuable insight on how
Speaker 1: people operate in different contexts, and then how we can
Speaker 1: redefine our our culture frankly inside out in this moment
Speaker 1: of vulnerability that it's in, in this moment of opportunity
Speaker 1: that we have. So you live in the West Adams
Speaker 1: area of l A. Right, Yeah that's right. And so
Speaker 1: in your backyard you just decided to start a garden.
Speaker 1: Yeah that's right. So I have a three year old daughter,
Speaker 1: and the idea was she was so beautiful and perfect
Speaker 1: when she came out. I couldn't imagine incrementally poisoning her
Speaker 1: throughout her life until she's no longer as beautiful. In
Speaker 1: the same way that I think about trading you know,
Speaker 1: when you trade on a stock, the stock has one
Speaker 1: uptick if you bought it already had a downtick if
Speaker 1: you sold it. And it's the same thing with the
Speaker 1: food and anything else that's influencing our body. Have an
Speaker 1: uptick if we put in our body that's healthy and
Speaker 1: nutrient rich, and if we have a downtick if we
Speaker 1: just had to get some fast food on the way somewhere.
Speaker 1: So my thing is with this movement, let's plug in
Speaker 1: that food exactly where the institutions already exist, like those restaurants,
Speaker 1: those chefs where folks are already rushing, you know, slipping
Speaker 1: our our lettuce in there, you know, slipping our tomatoes
Speaker 1: over here, and get people used to this really great
Speaker 1: food and then eventually that's what they'll get used to
Speaker 1: and crave on their own. Because it's really it's really sad.
Speaker 1: And I know from my own experience in Baltimore that
Speaker 1: and you talk about it, you know, food deserts in
Speaker 1: the inner city. There's just they don't have access to healthy,
Speaker 1: nutritious food. And I know that my sister was actually
Speaker 1: involved in getting a community garden started in one of
Speaker 1: the areas in in Park Heights, which is a depressed area,
Speaker 1: one of the depressed areas in Baltimore City. And she says,
Speaker 1: now that they are community gardens all over. What about you, Ashley,
Speaker 1: have has that been your experience where you live because
Speaker 1: you live in Indiana, right, I live in Indiana, and
Speaker 1: I you know, I spent about six years and living
Speaker 1: in Brooklyn, and before that it was twenty seven years
Speaker 1: in Indiana. So the Midwest is where I've been for
Speaker 1: the majority of my life. And I gotta tell you,
Speaker 1: I grew up not in any kind of inner city, Okay,
Speaker 1: Like I lived on the edges of a suburb. My
Speaker 1: school was a county new school. It was all black,
Speaker 1: but it was a county school. Technically. We were in
Speaker 1: the country. And when I graduated from high school, I
Speaker 1: would say from the time I was eleven until the
Speaker 1: time I was eighteen, we lost every grocery store within
Speaker 1: a mile of my mom's house. Every single grocery store
Speaker 1: was gone. If we needed to get groceries, we had
Speaker 1: to drive about ten to fifteen miles away to find
Speaker 1: the Kroger or something like that. They eventually got a Walmart,
Speaker 1: of course, which is what happens all the local grocery
Speaker 1: stores are gone and the Walmart comes through um or
Speaker 1: the big box stores come in. But up until that
Speaker 1: time we groceries. Going to the grocery store wasn't like
Speaker 1: a real We had to be ready to go. Everybody
Speaker 1: had to be in the car and able to go.
Speaker 1: My mom was a single parent before kids didn't have
Speaker 1: a lot of time. I grew up in the kind
Speaker 1: of food desert where it was so much easier for
Speaker 1: my mom after work to stop by Arby's, then to
Speaker 1: stop by a grocery store anything to get things to cook.
Speaker 1: And then also where would she find the time to cook?
Speaker 1: And I as an adult, as I got older, I've
Speaker 1: learned so much about my body by learning how to
Speaker 1: feed my body because I had I had no real
Speaker 1: idea what my body needed or how to feed it.
Speaker 1: And even going to doctors about things like having polycystic
Speaker 1: ovary syndrome and finding out that so many young girls
Speaker 1: have polycystic ovary syndrome because of the hormones in their food.
Speaker 1: And it's one of the saddest you know, like things
Speaker 1: that have to explain to somebody, like you gave with
Speaker 1: the wrong milk when they were up until they were eight,
Speaker 1: and now you have a nine year old who's getting
Speaker 1: a minstrual cycle and growing bless and having all of
Speaker 1: these things happening, and it's incredibly sad to have that
Speaker 1: happen to your body. And I don't I'm like you, Dory,
Speaker 1: I don't ever want to see that happen to anybody
Speaker 1: else again. I know that it is happening right now.
Speaker 1: But whatever we can do to mitigate that, I'm in.
Speaker 1: I'm trying to make sure we protect these kids and
Speaker 1: protect people's health and their bodies. And you actually call
Speaker 1: it food apartheid, Jamia, talk about that. How you use
Speaker 1: that terminology, Jamaiah, Sure. Yeah. A lot of times we
Speaker 1: hear the term food desert, and it's used as kind
Speaker 1: of an excuse. That's that's all it is. People say, oh,
Speaker 1: it's a food desert, there's nothing there. It's like a
Speaker 1: natural occurring thing. It's a desert. We use that analogy
Speaker 1: and everyone feels metaphorically comfortable, but in truth, it's an
Speaker 1: intentional design by you know, folks who are like everything else,
Speaker 1: you know, those who control the food grocery stores or
Speaker 1: the policies on what can be where, like the zoning
Speaker 1: also down to the policies of what you can grow
Speaker 1: and where you can sell it. For instance, what we're
Speaker 1: doing cross falk l A is called truck gardening, where
Speaker 1: we'll grow it in one place, the front yard, and
Speaker 1: we'll sell it in a different place, like a market.
Speaker 1: So it's got to be registered there. But it's a
Speaker 1: way to leverage real estate that we don't own, kind
Speaker 1: of like a shared sharecropping system. And you know, that's
Speaker 1: that's what we have to do in order to take
Speaker 1: care of ourselves in a system that won't care for us.
Speaker 1: I love that terminology. I love the thought in that
Speaker 1: because I think the same thing. Deserts are naturally occurring,
Speaker 1: they're just part of the thing, and food deserts are not.
Speaker 1: They are by design. It's one purpose. The other thing
Speaker 1: I want to talk about too, is that people always
Speaker 1: are trying to make it seem like buying organically, Yeah,
Speaker 1: isn't not expensive. I don't understand. It absolutely is more expensive,
Speaker 1: and they're paying you. You you have to pay extra
Speaker 1: for them to not put pesticides on your food exactly.
Speaker 1: It's crazy. And that's the irony because when you really
Speaker 1: grow the food in the nutrient rich fashion, it actually
Speaker 1: has a longer shelf life than anything else out there.
Speaker 1: So you know that we're gonna end up doing the
Speaker 1: total opposite. Please keep doing what you're doing, Jamaa. We
Speaker 1: need to we need to spread this on. But I
Speaker 1: think the other thing that people need to understand, just
Speaker 1: very briefly is everything. Everything doesn't need to be organic. Right.
Speaker 1: They're particularly foods and vegetables that have a skin on
Speaker 1: it that you're not going to eat the skin. You
Speaker 1: don't need to buy organic bananas, you don't need to
Speaker 1: buy organic oranges. So I will say that is what
Speaker 1: we've been that's what we've been told. But in truth,
Speaker 1: if it's pesticide use, it's all through the plant, it's
Speaker 1: all through the flesh, the inner parts of anything, not
Speaker 1: just on the outside. They may spray it, yeah, they
Speaker 1: may spray it from the outside, but it seeps into
Speaker 1: the soils, it seeps in through the roots, through the skins.
Speaker 1: It's absolutely on the inside of every fruit that is used.
Speaker 1: It's not organic. Oh my goodness. Okay, so I'm getting
Speaker 1: out false information. It's okay, it's okay. We're learning together,
Speaker 1: and that's that's the point. Yeah. Well, truly, if we
Speaker 1: go back four generations and our families what what did
Speaker 1: they know about food? They were also misinformed and melt
Speaker 1: poorly treated in the food aspect of life. And you know,
Speaker 1: so we have to we have to advance so that
Speaker 1: our kids and our grandkids, your kids, my daughter's kids
Speaker 1: one day no way better than we do today learning
Speaker 1: about hormones and the nutritional factor of what's in food
Speaker 1: and how it affects your body over the long term.
Speaker 1: With such an education, I didn't realize, and I know
Speaker 1: that my mother didn't realize. She's like, you know, we're
Speaker 1: just trying to feed these kids. You know what most
Speaker 1: parents are thinking about, and you don't think about the
Speaker 1: fact that these companies might be putting things into your
Speaker 1: food that over time will harm your children or and
Speaker 1: will have longstanding consequences in their bodies. And that's one
Speaker 1: one of the issues too, that is is really so
Speaker 1: such a challenge for us in the black community to
Speaker 1: just understand and learned about nutrition. Because when I was
Speaker 1: in Baltimore and a member of my church, it was
Speaker 1: Macedonia Baptist Church, and I became a member of the
Speaker 1: food ministry and we we had a food bank, and
Speaker 1: so we helped deliver food to the community, and when
Speaker 1: we would be packaging up the bags and people would
Speaker 1: come through the lines too, and they could get whatever
Speaker 1: they wanted that we had. It was really really surprising
Speaker 1: some of the fresh vegetables that particularly the younger people,
Speaker 1: the younger women, did not want, and they didn't understand
Speaker 1: how to prepare it, things like fresh green. That was
Speaker 1: really shocking to me because I was like, are they
Speaker 1: just not used to seeing them fresh so they didn't
Speaker 1: know what they are? They used to seeing him in
Speaker 1: a can or I didn't understand that they they were
Speaker 1: just passed by all the beautiful fresh spinage and kel
Speaker 1: and collards and ye. Maya might be able to answer
Speaker 1: that better than I can, but I think they from experience,
Speaker 1: I didn't know that that's what greens looked like. I
Speaker 1: was really confused that breens, that greens didn't come with
Speaker 1: baking on them. I'm gonna just be rare. I didn't
Speaker 1: know that that was please shump in, Please shump in
Speaker 1: on that, because that was that was really challenging. That
Speaker 1: was really challenging. Well, it's it's a fascinating antidote because
Speaker 1: education comes from many forms. Part of it is how
Speaker 1: we're raised based on what we have around and have available.
Speaker 1: And then part of it is systemic, and that is
Speaker 1: to say, you know that there aren't many kinds of
Speaker 1: vegetables at the grocery store in the first place. I
Speaker 1: know somebody, you know in my neighborhood who's got two
Speaker 1: hundred types of tomatoes on demand, Like that's how it
Speaker 1: ought to be. So, you know, part of it is
Speaker 1: education we are raised with. The other part of it
Speaker 1: is exposure now that we're here, so you know, those
Speaker 1: indigenous foods, those seeds from our ancestors, those that we
Speaker 1: still have an heirloom and access, that's what we need
Speaker 1: to be gaining access to. That's what we're trying with
Speaker 1: crosswop l A. You know, getting those foods has a
Speaker 1: nutrient advantage oftentimes. For instance, I had this red corn
Speaker 1: that has more protein than a regular yellow corn, and
Speaker 1: it's just because it's a different variety. Is it took
Speaker 1: the same time to grow, same energy and space and
Speaker 1: all I did have to eat it and put it
Speaker 1: into my face. Yeah, and people are looking like what
Speaker 1: is this now, I've never I've never seen red corn.
Speaker 1: I had family members and you know when I went
Speaker 1: to college is when I really started trying different foods.
Speaker 1: And a big part of the reason why I was
Speaker 1: able to do that was because I had my food
Speaker 1: card on campus and there were different fresh options for
Speaker 1: food around campus. They weren't necessarily great, but they were
Speaker 1: more than I had ever had access to. I grew
Speaker 1: up going to my friends houses, and if my friends
Speaker 1: parents had like fresh fruit and a bowl on a
Speaker 1: table or something like that, I was like, they're rich,
Speaker 1: Like you have to be rich for that to have
Speaker 1: fresh fruit. That's what I genuinely thought. And so when
Speaker 1: I go to college, I'm coming back home and then
Speaker 1: you know, buying things at the grocery store and trying
Speaker 1: to get my grandma and my mom and my cousins
Speaker 1: to try it. Like seriously, guys, pomegranate seems they're so good,
Speaker 1: and my never, how do you even open this? You
Speaker 1: know what I mean? I can get them out and
Speaker 1: being able to show them that like introducing people to
Speaker 1: things like in my family, like to be have a
Speaker 1: car attoum, things like that like that people would just
Speaker 1: never thought to pick up or mess with at the
Speaker 1: grocery store. And people can be really really resistant to
Speaker 1: trying new things. It's it's amazing to me. It's amazing
Speaker 1: to me, like we just weren't raised like that. I
Speaker 1: guess that's the one thing that I can attributed it
Speaker 1: to is that just my mother was always well my mother.
Speaker 1: Let's just be clear. My mother wasn't a great cook anyway,
Speaker 1: but she would. But the one thing she did was
Speaker 1: she was always trying to experiment and bring us new
Speaker 1: foods to try because she felt like, you have to
Speaker 1: eat three times a day, three hundred and sixty five days,
Speaker 1: you know, and she didn't want to be bored your mom.
Speaker 1: So she definitely had the right idea. Even though she
Speaker 1: wasn't a great cook, she definitely had the right idea.
Speaker 1: And she was more interested in nutrition than she was
Speaker 1: in flavor, and you can be interested in both, is
Speaker 1: what I'm figuring out at this point in my life.
Speaker 1: I agree, Ashley, let's talk about what's what's going on
Speaker 1: with you and this lunch debt that you Yeah, the
Speaker 1: lunch debt situation is so interesting to me because essentially
Speaker 1: what happened was that I saw a tweet. I saw
Speaker 1: a tweet from a politician who was saying that kids
Speaker 1: don't want a free lunch that they want dignity, and
Speaker 1: I thought that was insane. I thought it was not
Speaker 1: just but also grossly inaccurate. As a kid who grew
Speaker 1: up on um, free and reduced lunch programs in school,
Speaker 1: I remember what it was like. And I never felt
Speaker 1: a lack of dignity because my single mother had to
Speaker 1: fill out a form that helped me get a meal
Speaker 1: in the middle of the day. That never felt like
Speaker 1: I am not a dignified person. I felt like I
Speaker 1: am a kid and I want to eat like any
Speaker 1: child would. And I was never made to feel bad
Speaker 1: about that in my community where that was actually pretty common.
Speaker 1: But then I got accepted into a gifted program, and
Speaker 1: as part of that gifted program, I got shipped to
Speaker 1: a different school a couple of times a week. And
Speaker 1: it was a school that was predominantly white, and it
Speaker 1: was a school that was predominantly wealthy, and the lunch
Speaker 1: staff there had no idea what to do when it
Speaker 1: was time for me to eat lunch. It's like everything
Speaker 1: broke down when they realized they had a student who
Speaker 1: needed who was on free or reduced lunch, and that
Speaker 1: I was not actually going to be paying them money
Speaker 1: for my lunch that day, and it was the first
Speaker 1: time I ever felt any kind of shame around the
Speaker 1: fact that I needed to eat and I did not
Speaker 1: come from money. It was the first time that happened.
Speaker 1: And seeing this tweet from this politician talking about kids
Speaker 1: wanting dignity more than they wanted to eat in the
Speaker 1: middle of the day rang so false that I felt
Speaker 1: like I had to do something and talk about what
Speaker 1: I saw happening. So so they actually, I'm confused, they
Speaker 1: sent you to another school that didn't provide the free lunch.
Speaker 1: They provided that they provided it because they were part
Speaker 1: of the district. They just hadn't ever had a student
Speaker 1: who needed it until I showed up, and so they
Speaker 1: had no idea how to help me in that moment.
Speaker 1: And they were so concerned with the fact that I
Speaker 1: didn't have this dollar in ten cents for my lunch
Speaker 1: that like they pulled out a red binder like the
Speaker 1: lunch lady and held up the whole line to pull
Speaker 1: out a red binder and look up what she needed
Speaker 1: to do, because what she really thought she was a
Speaker 1: you don't have money, then you don't get lunch. And
Speaker 1: that wasn't the case for me, and it was a
Speaker 1: big deal, and it really like it became a really
Speaker 1: shameful moment and through like seeing this tweet and being like,
Speaker 1: this is ridiculous, and you know, I then found out
Speaker 1: that there was such a thing as student lunch debt,
Speaker 1: that kids across the country were being punished because they
Speaker 1: were eating lunch like they could no longer. There were
Speaker 1: schools where they could no longer turn kids away and
Speaker 1: say that you can't have lunch. So instead of saying
Speaker 1: you can't have lunch, they started a debt for the child,
Speaker 1: like a debt account, and if the debt isn't paid,
Speaker 1: then they can tell you that you can't have lunch
Speaker 1: or they have to offer you an alternative lunch. An
Speaker 1: alternative lunch doesn't have to be anything. For some of
Speaker 1: these schools, an alternative lunch for a kid were two
Speaker 1: slices of white bread and a old piece of cheese.
Speaker 1: And then they weren't allowed to have a milk. They
Speaker 1: could have water from a faucet and people and the
Speaker 1: lunch the lunch staff would give them cup like basically
Speaker 1: like you get a cup and you get this cold
Speaker 1: cheese sandwich. And if that's not enough to sustain you
Speaker 1: for the rest of your school day, then too bad,
Speaker 1: talk to your parents. It There were kids who were
Speaker 1: being not allowed to go to dances because they had
Speaker 1: lunch debt. Can't go to prom because you have lunch debt.
Speaker 1: There were kids who I found out we're being told
Speaker 1: they weren't going to be allowed to walk at graduation
Speaker 1: because they still owed a lunch debt. And the idea
Speaker 1: disgusted me so much that I'm just the kind of
Speaker 1: person where I don't really like to complain online unless
Speaker 1: I also offer, like some way for people to do
Speaker 1: something about what we're upset about, or about what I'm
Speaker 1: upset about. So I just said, hey, why don't you
Speaker 1: call your local school and see what these lunch debts
Speaker 1: are if you have a school that has lunch debt,
Speaker 1: and pay them off. Because a lot of times the
Speaker 1: amount that it took to pay off these lunch debts,
Speaker 1: like we're thinking about, you know, man, kids not being
Speaker 1: able to eat, kids not being able to go to
Speaker 1: their homecomings and dances, and not being able to graduate,
Speaker 1: this must be big debt. These debts ranged anywhere from
Speaker 1: five to fifty dollars, and so you know, people took
Speaker 1: it seriously, Like I mean, so many people, I think
Speaker 1: we're sounded by the idea that there is such a
Speaker 1: thing as a lunch debt that they called just being
Speaker 1: curious and found these debts and just started paying them off.
Speaker 1: And the next thing I knew, it was a movement
Speaker 1: going across Twitter, going across social media where people were saying, Hey,
Speaker 1: let's call a local school today and take care of
Speaker 1: these lunch debts. Schools were reaching out to me and
Speaker 1: saying that somebody left my name, but they shown up
Speaker 1: with a check and set it down and said, I
Speaker 1: want to pay off all the lunch debt at this school.
Speaker 1: And it wasn't expect from me, but it was just
Speaker 1: the idea had spread so far that by the end
Speaker 1: of it, as far as I could track, over the
Speaker 1: past years that this has been happening, you probably paid
Speaker 1: off across the country over three hundred thousand dollars in
Speaker 1: lunch debts um with students so that they can just
Speaker 1: be a student, be a kid, like every kid should
Speaker 1: be allowed to be. Wow, I never heard of that.
Speaker 1: I don't. I don't know if we have like lunch
Speaker 1: debt in in Maryland. That that's interesting. We didn't have it.
Speaker 1: You know, I called local schools when I was living
Speaker 1: in Brooklyn. I called immediately to all the schools around me,
Speaker 1: and they were quick to say, every child here gets
Speaker 1: the meal, every child get the mail, and they do
Speaker 1: not have lunch debt. It was it depends on the school,
Speaker 1: it depends on the district. Got it. Wow? Yes, but
Speaker 1: it was terrifying. I mean it was the idea that
Speaker 1: we could put children, children run into debt because they
Speaker 1: eat a meal in the middle of their school day
Speaker 1: is not only heartbreaking, I think about these kids who
Speaker 1: are already thinking of themselves as saddled with debt. With debt,
Speaker 1: and debt is a means to control, like scarcity as
Speaker 1: an idea is a means to control. When you were
Speaker 1: talking a little bit earlier about people helping each other
Speaker 1: in community and finding these things, you know, before I
Speaker 1: left New York, one of the things that I noticed
Speaker 1: was there are a couple of churches in my neighborhood,
Speaker 1: and the lines for their food bank options we're getting
Speaker 1: just I mean wrapped around the block. The voting lines
Speaker 1: were wrapped around the block, but before that, the food
Speaker 1: bank lines were wrapped around the block, over and over
Speaker 1: and over. And you know, one time, I one of
Speaker 1: my neighbors sat one of those boxes outside my door
Speaker 1: just in case I needed it, and I took it
Speaker 1: inside and I opened it to see what was inside,
Speaker 1: and one of the first things I saw was a
Speaker 1: letter from a politician essentially saying you got this box
Speaker 1: because of me. And it really messed with me, because
Speaker 1: I think that's when it came home that this is
Speaker 1: the same thing that we're doing to these kids. It's
Speaker 1: already getting them into the scarcity mindset so that they
Speaker 1: really don't think about the fact that they are worth
Speaker 1: more and that their value is so far beyond something
Speaker 1: as insidious as a lunch debt. I just have to
Speaker 1: say when when politicians use food as power that directly
Speaker 1: it's not moral. It is true. Food is power, and
Speaker 1: you still can use it that way, but don't do
Speaker 1: it that way. Food has been used as a weapon
Speaker 1: through slavery and until and then since, and if we
Speaker 1: can turn it around and use food as a tool
Speaker 1: for liberation, then will eliminate that as a weapon of
Speaker 1: choice altogether. And school debt has obviously been a real problem,
Speaker 1: and in California, Governor knew Some signed the law in
Speaker 1: twenty nineteen that mandates that all students, all students are
Speaker 1: entitled to a school lunch, whether they have the funds
Speaker 1: to pay or not. If this is new to you,
Speaker 1: because it was new to me that that is, one
Speaker 1: of the things that you can do is you can
Speaker 1: call your local schools and find out if something like
Speaker 1: this even exists. You know what, you know, it's really cool, Gammy.
Speaker 1: One of the best things that came out of this
Speaker 1: for me. There were quite a few people who I've
Speaker 1: interacted with online. I don't know in real life, but like,
Speaker 1: those are just the interactions we've had who let me
Speaker 1: know that even though they don't have children, they join
Speaker 1: their local school boards to make sure that when these
Speaker 1: decisions are made there in the room and they get
Speaker 1: to express what people really want to see. Nobody wants
Speaker 1: to see a child hungry, and nobody wants to see
Speaker 1: a district, definitely not a school district, attempt to punish
Speaker 1: a parent via their child, which a lot of times
Speaker 1: this is well, why don't the parents just pay it off?
Speaker 1: And it's like, how could that be the child's problem?
Speaker 1: How can we possibly make that a child's problem, whether
Speaker 1: or not their parents have the interests or the resources,
Speaker 1: because that's really what it comes down to. Either their
Speaker 1: parents don't have the resources or they have a parent
Speaker 1: who doesn't have the interest, and that both situations are sad,
Speaker 1: but we are not going to solve them by having
Speaker 1: hungry children in school. We're not to solve it by
Speaker 1: having kids who can't learn because they can't think because
Speaker 1: their stomachs are rumbling. Right, Okay, So tell me about
Speaker 1: starting your garden and how that evolved into cropswap l A. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: I have to say my garden started off really small
Speaker 1: and it expanded because I realized what was possible. That's
Speaker 1: exactly what's happening with cross fop l A. It was
Speaker 1: just a few gardeners who were sharing their extra things
Speaker 1: and having what we were calling crop swaps in my
Speaker 1: backyard every month, and that evolved into a farmer's market
Speaker 1: that we open and you know then free food we
Speaker 1: were given during COVID to give away to the community.
Speaker 1: And now our goal and our true objective, is to
Speaker 1: grow food on unused spaces. So that can be front yards.
Speaker 1: A lot of front yards in Los Angeles just being
Speaker 1: waste in with grass and space. It can be concrete
Speaker 1: spaces like a parking lot or a driveway that's being unused.
Speaker 1: We know how to grow food on tables and trays
Speaker 1: that's high nutrient rich and amazing, and so we're doing
Speaker 1: that and we're putting agreements together right now around town
Speaker 1: as well as larger scale projects. So we're hoping to
Speaker 1: convert a large empty space into a park and agriculture space.
Speaker 1: So my goal really is, you know, to scale up,
Speaker 1: just as nature does as it scales down. There's something
Speaker 1: in the Daal that says that the little is just
Speaker 1: as important as the big, and that's how I think
Speaker 1: this movement can move. You know, I think I want
Speaker 1: to get even a little bit more basic than that, Jamiah,
Speaker 1: because you really have to know what you're doing. Because
Speaker 1: my mother was a master gardener, okay, and she had
Speaker 1: a beautiful flower garden and vegetables. And it's funny because
Speaker 1: when she passed, like she she had everything like a
Speaker 1: all plotted out how we were supposed to maintain the
Speaker 1: garden and all of that. It's all written down, it
Speaker 1: was all in in like a blueprint. We were not
Speaker 1: able to follow that because nobody was as passionate about
Speaker 1: it as she was. But my sister who has taken
Speaker 1: over that property, she does, she does do a bit,
Speaker 1: and she has become a master gardener, But she doesn't.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, Karen, you don't compare to mommy, but she
Speaker 1: has done better than than most of us. But you
Speaker 1: you really do have to have some knowledge and understanding
Speaker 1: about how to grow things. How did you get that?
Speaker 1: Like did you just learn from your grandmother or did
Speaker 1: you take a course or are your neighbors coming together
Speaker 1: and sharing information about Oh this works and that doesn't work.
Speaker 1: I mean, like simple things like the what is it
Speaker 1: that you that helps feed the soil? What is it?
Speaker 1: Com posts? Yeah, com posting, Like the first time my
Speaker 1: sister tried that, like there was a bunch of mice
Speaker 1: in there that scared her to death because she wasn't
Speaker 1: doing it right. You know, I mean, I guess our
Speaker 1: containers were wrong or something, But you know, I mean
Speaker 1: like that really takes some some investigation, I would say,
Speaker 1: and some dedication, Thank you, thank you. It takes some
Speaker 1: trial and air for sure. For my journey, it all
Speaker 1: began intellectually with with botany because how plants work is
Speaker 1: fascinating to me. How they can just take sunlight, and
Speaker 1: take this water and take this earth, and somehow you
Speaker 1: have fruit and life from it and would and structure.
Speaker 1: You know. It's fascinating. And so I've always been looking
Speaker 1: into retiring and becoming a botanist one day, and when
Speaker 1: all this opportunity came up, I've just been delving even
Speaker 1: deeper into you know, why plants do certain things for
Speaker 1: the purpose of growing food. Also, you know, sharing with
Speaker 1: people like fascinating things. Why certain flowers or certain colors
Speaker 1: and they open at certain times of the day. You know.
Speaker 1: I love that stuff. And then the real use of
Speaker 1: it in our culture, almost like the return to nature.
Speaker 1: Everybody wants that right now. They've been kind of wanting
Speaker 1: it for a while, and that's where the passion comes
Speaker 1: from technically than the trial and error of like doing it.
Speaker 1: For sure, I got mice in my compost right now.
Speaker 1: I think that's why I laughed. That's the whole thing
Speaker 1: about a compost. I'm like, I don't know if I yeah,
Speaker 1: there's a better way to do it than we're doing
Speaker 1: it right now. But but professionally, when we get going,
Speaker 1: I do have to say, jemayah though, that really the
Speaker 1: way you talk about it though, it it makes me
Speaker 1: want to dream a bigger dream for myself in terms
Speaker 1: of what might be possible and what I can do
Speaker 1: and how and I can help people. Like even now
Speaker 1: I'm like, yo, prop swap Indie, we can make this
Speaker 1: app like we could make this work. I'm thinking about
Speaker 1: all the land around here, and I'm like, now, wait
Speaker 1: a damn minute, I know I can put some tomatoes
Speaker 1: something like, and just talking about it and having the
Speaker 1: option like, it's like, what you're doing to me is
Speaker 1: you're changing a mindset and a perception about what can
Speaker 1: be possible, not just in terms of how we feed ourselves,
Speaker 1: but then also how we come together in community and
Speaker 1: share with one another. Now, it's that it's that idea
Speaker 1: of not just like having the like anybody like grow
Speaker 1: crops and be like, yeah, I have all these crops
Speaker 1: and all this power, but then acknowledging the shared responsibility
Speaker 1: to your neighbors and to the people who live among you.
Speaker 1: It's like, it's not that I've never thought of that before,
Speaker 1: but I've never I don't think I really believed it
Speaker 1: could work the way it's working for crops Wop. I
Speaker 1: think I doubted it. Thank you and it's not your fault.
Speaker 1: It's not your fault for doubting it. We've been fed
Speaker 1: a false sense of scarcity in this country. There's a
Speaker 1: false sense of scarcity with food and nature. That's it's
Speaker 1: that's untrue. In truth, what we have is abundance in nature.
Speaker 1: It gives so much. One apple tree will give you
Speaker 1: way more than you want for like three seasons, and
Speaker 1: you'll be like, someone, please take the take the damn apples,
Speaker 1: and so like. Feeding off of that abundance creates a
Speaker 1: job opportunities for people, So there's an economic sustainability aspects
Speaker 1: to it all, and everyone ends up being happy. So
Speaker 1: all it needed was a couple of dots to be connected.
Speaker 1: But first for a couple of dots to be disconnected
Speaker 1: in our society, we needed it all to break and
Speaker 1: fall apart. This whole um supply chain crisis with food
Speaker 1: that comes up every time there's a lockdown. You know
Speaker 1: that's a real issue. And meanwhile, the only food we
Speaker 1: may have available is not the best food. So here
Speaker 1: we go a chance to connect the correct dots, and
Speaker 1: I'm really excited to be sharing that. Thank you. So
Speaker 1: let me let me ask you this to to Mike,
Speaker 1: because I think about, Okay, in the pandemic, people are losing,
Speaker 1: you know, their jobs, so they don't have a lot
Speaker 1: of money right to even go to the supermarket to shop.
Speaker 1: You're not working. But what you do have is time, right,
Speaker 1: you have time. How do you start your own garden
Speaker 1: that would end up filling some of the void that
Speaker 1: you have as far as your lack of food for
Speaker 1: your own family, right, because you you don't have to
Speaker 1: have because I'm thinking, okay, well everybody doesn't even have
Speaker 1: a yard, but there is some gardening that you can do, right,
Speaker 1: like rooftop and you know, on your decks, and so
Speaker 1: can you do more than grow just herbs though, because
Speaker 1: you always hear people talking about a herb garden. But
Speaker 1: if you're talking about being able to garden, to grow
Speaker 1: food to supplement, let's just say to start to supplement
Speaker 1: what you can't buy in the grocery store. Because economically
Speaker 1: it might actually be helpful for you to grow you
Speaker 1: to start growing your own food, right, not just more helpful,
Speaker 1: but economically, that's right, it's so many, so many ways.
Speaker 1: Economically it multiplies itself and depends on what you're growing,
Speaker 1: you could replant it and eat it again. Yeah. So
Speaker 1: what is what is something that that you would suggest
Speaker 1: that somebody start with. Would it be would it be
Speaker 1: some kind of greens or lettuce or sweet potatoes? Yeah? Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I love those. All those are good options. They're all
Speaker 1: easy to grow. Really sweet potato super easy to grow.
Speaker 1: And you don't need a garden for that. You can
Speaker 1: do that in a pot. Yeah, there's a way to
Speaker 1: do it in like a crate. But I think you know,
Speaker 1: something to start out with could be like lettuces. And
Speaker 1: one thing that we're gonna be doing a crop swop
Speaker 1: l A is this vertical tower soon that has allowed
Speaker 1: allow you to grow on multiple levels and it just
Speaker 1: stands up on the wall somewhere waters itself. Something like
Speaker 1: that doesn't take a lot of space. We also have
Speaker 1: these trays, so people have a lot of options that
Speaker 1: they can get started with. But food wise, i'd say,
Speaker 1: you know, salads are things that grow fast and in
Speaker 1: nutrient rich soil. It'll grow and harvest every single month,
Speaker 1: so watered well and well sunlight. But generally, I think
Speaker 1: you can also grow more than just leafy greens in
Speaker 1: these things, and and in your small spaces, things like beats.
Speaker 1: Beats are huge once they're really grown. Well, yeah, something
Speaker 1: chunky that you want to chop up and like crunch on.
Speaker 1: And you know other things that are that are viny,
Speaker 1: such as squashes. All they need to be done is
Speaker 1: plugged in and they go off and grow over there.
Speaker 1: So you know, you can really take advantage of space
Speaker 1: like a balcony. I've seen people do that really well
Speaker 1: with heavy squashes hanging off those things. Pumpkins too, Pumpkins
Speaker 1: you can almost grow on accident, like you really get
Speaker 1: like you really almost can. Like with pumpkins you can.
Speaker 1: My friend of mine, Daniel jose Older, another writer, he
Speaker 1: threw some pumpkin seeds and hit in the corner of
Speaker 1: his backyard I think about a year and a half ago,
Speaker 1: and he had huge pumpkins. He had thrown them into
Speaker 1: the corner and it's like like but like I was, like,
Speaker 1: pumpkins you can almost grow. You gotta watch them, but
Speaker 1: you can almost grow them on accident. Like there are
Speaker 1: quite a few things that I think we don't necessarily
Speaker 1: think of as like growing it and eating it. And
Speaker 1: then if you grow it, do you know how to
Speaker 1: prepare it? If you've always like bought it at the
Speaker 1: store or something like that. But we are in the
Speaker 1: information page and there are people out there like Jamaya,
Speaker 1: and there are Tiktoker's, Instagrammers, Twitterers, YouTubers, all kinds of
Speaker 1: people foragers constantly showing people how to garden, how to
Speaker 1: take care of plants, how to prepare what they have
Speaker 1: in the garden, how to store what they have in
Speaker 1: the garden. Here in Indiana, I took a class learning
Speaker 1: how to can freeze um and dry food for like winters.
Speaker 1: That you know, it's not anything I'm gonna need anytime soon, hopefully,
Speaker 1: but if I do, it feels good to know it's there.
Speaker 1: It feels good to know I can make my own
Speaker 1: apple butters or jams or or boos and store them
Speaker 1: for a long time. And I think that's another thing
Speaker 1: that people don't necessarily think of. It is like when
Speaker 1: you get that bounty, or even when you get a
Speaker 1: bounty from somebody else who's trying to get rid of
Speaker 1: a little bit of their bounty. There are ways that like,
Speaker 1: you can make that fresh immediately, but there are also
Speaker 1: ways to preserve it in the long term that you
Speaker 1: can keep it for a really long time. And not
Speaker 1: only does that help from an economic standpoint, but it's
Speaker 1: also a really good way to make sure that you
Speaker 1: know what's going into your troop. But that's again takes
Speaker 1: me back to crop Swap because I'm still thinking about
Speaker 1: inner city folks that may not have access to the
Speaker 1: Internet and you know, classes and all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 1: But at least at crop swap, you're there's a you know,
Speaker 1: you're interacting with face to face human beings who are
Speaker 1: able to you know, share and give you that information
Speaker 1: and tell you, oh, well, this is Callilu. I heard
Speaker 1: you talking about Callilou, you know, and this is how
Speaker 1: you prepare it, you know that kind of thing. Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: And we're also taking over front yards to manage them
Speaker 1: ourselves so that we can be economically in sync with
Speaker 1: the homeowner and make money together from their yard. Talk
Speaker 1: to me about that. How how did you incorporate or
Speaker 1: integrate economy with community so that there's some profitability going on?
Speaker 1: That's exactly right. Yeah, is a couple of like very
Speaker 1: narrow passageways we've been able to find to link all
Speaker 1: this together. It's still true. It's like basically, you know,
Speaker 1: using these front yards we're gonna be offering to the
Speaker 1: homeowner a percentage of the percentage of the money we
Speaker 1: earned from the food there that they can take home
Speaker 1: every month, and we'll pay the extra water. Because basically
Speaker 1: the system we're being we're gonna be installing is water recycling,
Speaker 1: using the same water hundreds of times before it's depleted
Speaker 1: just to grow food, and it'll it will also catch
Speaker 1: rainwater when it when it falls, so it's rainwater harvesting,
Speaker 1: rainwater recycling, aquaponics because it will have a fish elements
Speaker 1: to it that uses its fish pooped as a nitrate
Speaker 1: to basically make the food healthier. And it'll be automated irrigation,
Speaker 1: so basically the food will just grow and our team
Speaker 1: will come by to harvest, maintain, package the goods, sell it,
Speaker 1: and give the homeowner a statement of their income. I think,
Speaker 1: and I just want to add to that, these front
Speaker 1: yard installations, we're doing them on a sliding scale, so
Speaker 1: for folks that can afford to have it installed, they may,
Speaker 1: but for folks that can't, We've got some grant money
Speaker 1: right now, and we're gonna keep getting more grant money
Speaker 1: so that we can put these in clusters in low
Speaker 1: income communities, manage them efficiently ourselves and do it for
Speaker 1: people that need it themselves. And I have this concept
Speaker 1: it's called local nutrient transfer. I was just getting ready
Speaker 1: to ask you about that. Ah, yeah, that's cool, thank you. Yeah,
Speaker 1: tell us about that that term, because that's a phrase
Speaker 1: that you kind of came up with, right, Yeah, the
Speaker 1: idea of keeping the local nutrient transfer idea of like
Speaker 1: keeping those nutrients that are under your exact feet into
Speaker 1: your exact body. And that's the right that we should
Speaker 1: all claim because what will happen otherwise is we'll grow
Speaker 1: a bunch of good food and low income neighborhoods and
Speaker 1: sell it in the high income neighborhoods and call ourselves successful.
Speaker 1: But that's not success. Success is when our children, our grandmothers,
Speaker 1: are widows, are our people that need it get it
Speaker 1: from where they are and there's no economic excuse me,
Speaker 1: there's no environmental cost of transportation, and that works much better.
Speaker 1: So so that's that's the goal. You don't make me holler,
Speaker 1: to be perfectly honest, It isn't been a couple of
Speaker 1: times sitting here where you're talking that I really want
Speaker 1: to say glory, and I didn't, but I felt it.
Speaker 1: I didn't say it, but I felt it. My goodness.
Speaker 1: It's just the thought and the intentionality, to be perfectly honest,
Speaker 1: like that's what so many people want to do good,
Speaker 1: they really really do, but they get it in their
Speaker 1: mind that there's like an A and B to getting
Speaker 1: the good And the truth of the matter is it's
Speaker 1: always actually an A to Z, and you got to
Speaker 1: stop at B and think about what you're doing. You
Speaker 1: gotta stop at sea and thinking about what you're doing
Speaker 1: and is it helping the right people and is it
Speaker 1: still in line with the goals that you had at
Speaker 1: the beginning. Just like that clarity of the trip from
Speaker 1: from inception of the idea to the result that the
Speaker 1: community actually sees is so hard to get right that
Speaker 1: it's like this is it's like a testimony. It's really
Speaker 1: like you're given a testimony. Yeah, and we we see
Speaker 1: and hear the passion that you you have about this
Speaker 1: crop swap and and just about the earth and growing
Speaker 1: and gardening. I feel like I'm missing something in my
Speaker 1: own life, I really do. And you're a perfect example,
Speaker 1: Jemiyah of that when people kind of like struggling now
Speaker 1: and you always hear people talking about what is my purpose,
Speaker 1: you know, and not being able and not knowing what
Speaker 1: their purpose in life is. And I feel like, really,
Speaker 1: you have found your purpose. And it's a perfect example.
Speaker 1: I was one of those folks. Yeah. Really, Okay, Well,
Speaker 1: I'm sure you don't feel that way now. No, not
Speaker 1: in a way. I know exactly which direction to go.
Speaker 1: You are a perfect example of how when you're doing
Speaker 1: something just for money, a lot of times it's just
Speaker 1: not fulfilling, you know. And yeah, and you are really
Speaker 1: a shining light of that. Thank you, so so congratulations
Speaker 1: for finding your purpose. Thank you. It was not easy
Speaker 1: and it was not quick, and a lot of people
Speaker 1: had to be patient with me along the way. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Now that Jill Biden is soon to be the First Lady,
Speaker 1: do you think that she would as an educator address
Speaker 1: any of these issues as far as food and for
Speaker 1: the students. I certainly hope she does. I definitely hope
Speaker 1: she does. You know, I felt like when First Lady
Speaker 1: Michelle Obama was in the White House, and she really
Speaker 1: sort of led the charge for trying to get more
Speaker 1: nutritious foods into schools and also trying to get people
Speaker 1: to talk about gardening and how to like feed yourself
Speaker 1: in that way. I think that that would be a
Speaker 1: fantastic notion for Dr Biden to continue. I don't see
Speaker 1: it being a thing that she wouldn't do, to be
Speaker 1: perfectly honest, Like, just knowing her track record and how
Speaker 1: she has been really vocal about the need for education
Speaker 1: in a variety of ways in this country, I think
Speaker 1: this would be such a great goal for her to
Speaker 1: put on her list as First Lady over the next
Speaker 1: four to eight years. That would not only be I
Speaker 1: think like this really fantastic way to show a continuing
Speaker 1: care for this topic, it would also be a great
Speaker 1: way for the Biden administration in and of itself to
Speaker 1: show its commitment to the prog gress of black communities
Speaker 1: and definitely of lower income communities and places where these
Speaker 1: kinds of lessons are desperately needed. Absolutely, because we do
Speaker 1: need to make this clear that this is not just
Speaker 1: a black issue. Yeah, it's an issue for anyone of
Speaker 1: you know, and that falls into the lower economics status.
Speaker 1: So as we wind down and we're gonna get ready
Speaker 1: to roll out of here, but I want to mention
Speaker 1: just a few organizations in the community that people can
Speaker 1: donate to or use as a resource for accessing food.
Speaker 1: Here in l A, we want to check out lunch
Speaker 1: on Me by founder Larrea Gaston. Lunch on Me is
Speaker 1: a nonprofit dedicated to ending starvation while providing opportunities to
Speaker 1: enrich the mind, body, and spirit of l A's homeless community.
Speaker 1: And of course we cannot free get about Crop Swap
Speaker 1: l A. Moving on so Fire Farm in New York City.
Speaker 1: So Fire Farm is an Afro Indigenous centered community farm
Speaker 1: committed to a rooting racism and seating sovereignty in the
Speaker 1: food system. Shout out to my hometown in Baltimore, Maryland,
Speaker 1: Macedonia Baptist Church. They have a food bank there. To
Speaker 1: find a local food bank in your area, you can
Speaker 1: go to Feeding America dot org. Any other things before
Speaker 1: we get to our when you like to know section,
Speaker 1: is there any other points that you all want to
Speaker 1: make before we end? Yeah, Jamiyah, I wanted to mention
Speaker 1: earlier in terms of reaching low income communities and getting
Speaker 1: good veggies there. We have a partnership with a crop
Speaker 1: Swap app. That's an app where you can see a
Speaker 1: map where farmers are sitting and sending their cis a
Speaker 1: vegetable boxes directly into the city and you can buy
Speaker 1: at your doorstep. Okay, so is that something that we
Speaker 1: Okay because technologically challenged. It's cool. It's just an app,
Speaker 1: It's so, is it? It's an app? Like I can
Speaker 1: just go on my phone where the app store is
Speaker 1: and look out crops. Yeah, all one word. Check it out.
Speaker 1: It's pretty eat, it's pretty user friendly. I downloaded it
Speaker 1: just to play with it a little bit because I
Speaker 1: knew we were going to be here today, and it
Speaker 1: is very user friendly. If it's something that people are
Speaker 1: interested in. Is there anything else that you think that
Speaker 1: we could do as a community to work towards changing
Speaker 1: the changing how we eat, changing food availability, nutritious food.
Speaker 1: What what is it that we can be doing as
Speaker 1: a community. Do you think there's one thing you can
Speaker 1: do right away? We have a petition right now on
Speaker 1: petition dot org that is to convert a space that's
Speaker 1: currently concrete in front of a hides or permanent a
Speaker 1: building into agriculture and park land. So it's something that
Speaker 1: we're proposing with the Neighborhood Land Trust. We're in talks
Speaker 1: with the city council leadership and we're in talks with
Speaker 1: the leadership at Kaiser Permanente. We've got about signatures already
Speaker 1: if anyone wants to go on and you can find
Speaker 1: the petition on petition dot org or on my Instagram
Speaker 1: link or somehow, we'll make sure you have that available
Speaker 1: and please sign that position. That's the first thing you
Speaker 1: can do. Any final points for you, Ashley. It's almost
Speaker 1: weird to bring him up, but Guy Fiery Flavor Town
Speaker 1: restaurant owner. One of the things he says that I
Speaker 1: really desperately agree with is that it is so important
Speaker 1: to teach your kids how to cook. It is so
Speaker 1: important to teach them how to feed themselves, because not
Speaker 1: only does that take some of the pressure off of you,
Speaker 1: but it also encourages them to be cognizant of what
Speaker 1: they put in their bodies, how they like food, the
Speaker 1: flavors that they like, and be able to prepare food
Speaker 1: for themselves. It is a huge skill that not enough
Speaker 1: young people, especially I think have, is that they don't
Speaker 1: know how to prepare food for themselves, and so they
Speaker 1: feel like when they eat, it's all reactionary. It's just available,
Speaker 1: not necessarily what's good and what feels good to me.
Speaker 1: So it's a life skill. Teach kids how to cook,
Speaker 1: teach them about their bodies and how to pay attention
Speaker 1: to what's going in. Don't make it weird, don't make
Speaker 1: them feel like they're gonna get fat, you know, and
Speaker 1: use words like that, but just say, you know, does
Speaker 1: that feel good to you after you eat that? Does
Speaker 1: it taste good? And does it feel good? And I never,
Speaker 1: nobody ever taught me to think about whether or not
Speaker 1: food felt good to my body. Yeah, good point, Actually,
Speaker 1: good point. Thank you for that. Both are doing some
Speaker 1: amazing things. I'm so glad to have talked to both
Speaker 1: of you. I'm telling you now it's time for the
Speaker 1: segment when you like to know where you answer three
Speaker 1: rapid fire questions with the first phrase it comes to
Speaker 1: your mind. So, Ashley, we're going to start with you.
Speaker 1: What book or books are you reading right now? Oh
Speaker 1: my gosh, that's so wild, because I'm actually reading a
Speaker 1: book called Fearing the Black Body about fat phobia and
Speaker 1: where that comes from. And that's a big part of
Speaker 1: the nutrition conversation, I think, is that we need to
Speaker 1: talk about what feels good versus what you think is
Speaker 1: just going to make you look small. What about you, Jamiah,
Speaker 1: what are you reading right now? I'm reading power Nomics
Speaker 1: by Claude Anderson. It's a book that discusses plan for
Speaker 1: Black America to align our assets and our our energies
Speaker 1: to move forward and improve. It's actually part of a
Speaker 1: book club that I helped start through through bro Capital.
Speaker 1: It's called the Black Men's Library. We just started it
Speaker 1: during the pandemic. We we're only reading books from Black
Speaker 1: men and African men for ourselves and learning about and
Speaker 1: spending time with ourselves to learn what's been done and
Speaker 1: tried in the past us and what we can do
Speaker 1: and try in the future. So right now, it's a
Speaker 1: second series. The first one was Marcus Garvey's Philosophies and
Speaker 1: again now is Paronomics. The next is a really exciting one.
Speaker 1: It's called Neutracide, and neutracide is a discussion about how
Speaker 1: food is used as a poison as a weapon, and
Speaker 1: I can't wait to get to read about that. So
Speaker 1: that's the other Black Men's Library. Okay, Question number two,
Speaker 1: what's one thing you want to get off your chest?
Speaker 1: Ashley oh oh man, stuff I want to get off
Speaker 1: my chip. I think the thing I most want to
Speaker 1: get off my chest is that a lot of what
Speaker 1: we're seeing in the country right now that we try
Speaker 1: to pass off as quote unquote craziness or chaos is
Speaker 1: actually emotional breakdowns that people are expressing. And that doesn't
Speaker 1: mean that they shouldn't be held accountable for their actions,
Speaker 1: but it does mean that, like, people don't just have
Speaker 1: to be crazy. Sometimes people are just expressing a world
Speaker 1: of pain and somebody's going to have to address it
Speaker 1: at some point, hopefully. Then what about you, Jamiah? One
Speaker 1: thing you want to get off your chest. I want
Speaker 1: to get it off my chest that there are too
Speaker 1: many damn helicopters around Los Angeles. I don't know who's
Speaker 1: comfortable with that, who asked for that, who approved it?
Speaker 1: Why they're there? Do they know why they're up there?
Speaker 1: Is there enough happening down here for them to be
Speaker 1: up there? I actually feel you on that one too,
Speaker 1: because like by my house around where I live, there's
Speaker 1: this helicopter that's they're all the time. Like, what are
Speaker 1: you looking for? We're in the mountains. What's going on, Ashley?
Speaker 1: What's a model you live by? Nobody can be summed
Speaker 1: up by the best or worst thing they've ever done.
Speaker 1: We're all a lot more than that. That's a good one.
Speaker 1: Say that again. Nobody can be summed up by the
Speaker 1: best or worst thing they've ever done. We're all made
Speaker 1: up of so much more than that, and we all
Speaker 1: make mistakes, every single person. If you're a human being,
Speaker 1: you've made a mistake. If you're a human being, you're
Speaker 1: gonna make mistakes up until the day you die. The
Speaker 1: best thing you can do is learn how to give
Speaker 1: a good apology and process forgiveness within yourself so that
Speaker 1: you can offer it to others and try to do
Speaker 1: better the next time. Okay, when you know better, do better.
Speaker 1: What about you, Jamiah? What's the mottel you live by?
Speaker 1: The phrase I live by that comes to mind is
Speaker 1: success is as dangerous as failure because at either point
Speaker 1: of the ladder, whether you're at the top or the bottom,
Speaker 1: it's shaky on either end. And so that just reminds
Speaker 1: me that when I feel successful, or if I feel
Speaker 1: like i've I've hit some challenges, to remind myself to
Speaker 1: put myself back in the middle and remember where I
Speaker 1: came from and what the goal is to to rebalance
Speaker 1: and to not expect anything from either six s or
Speaker 1: failure because the outcome is truly indeterminate. Thank you both.
Speaker 1: What what a pleasure and what what an education it
Speaker 1: was to talk to both of you. It's been fantastic.
Speaker 1: Thank you, big pleasure you too. Thank you. Before we
Speaker 1: wrap up, please let the audience know where we can
Speaker 1: find you both on social media. Jemia you first, all right,
Speaker 1: So I'm Jamia Hargins and you can find me as
Speaker 1: Black Superdad on Instagram. I'm the only black Superdad with
Speaker 1: no hashes or anything. And you can go to www
Speaker 1: dot crop swap l a dot com to learn more
Speaker 1: about our movement. Thank you. You can find me on
Speaker 1: Twitter at I smash Fizzle, on Instagram at smash Fizzle,
Speaker 1: or at my website which is just Ashley Seaford dot com.
Speaker 1: Thank you both. It's been a pleasure. So these are
Speaker 1: my takeaways from my conversation with Jemiah and Ashley. Number One,
Speaker 1: growing and planting your own garden can be healing for
Speaker 1: the mind as well as the body. Use your creativity
Speaker 1: and imagination to find solutions for challenges and help you
Speaker 1: move forward. Number two, sometimes you just have to take
Speaker 1: a chance and try something new. You'll be surprised how
Speaker 1: foods that are good for you can taste good too.
Speaker 1: Number three, kids can't focus on learning if they're hungry.
Speaker 1: Teach your kids how to cook as a life skill
Speaker 1: so they learn how to take care of themselves and
Speaker 1: their bodies. Number four turns out food debt is a
Speaker 1: real problem within the educational system and it shouldn't be.
Speaker 1: Reach out to your local schools to find out if
Speaker 1: this is a problem in your area and how you
Speaker 1: can help. Check out the West Adams Farmers Market, open
Speaker 1: every Sunday from nine to one on here in Los Angeles.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening, everybody. If you're listening on Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: be sure to rate and review the episode. Follow me
Speaker 1: on my Instagram at gammy nars to share with me
Speaker 1: your thoughts on the episode. I'm here, I'm talking, and
Speaker 1: I'm listening, and as always, folks, stay grateful. Positively gam
Speaker 1: is produced by Westbrook Audio Executive producers Adrian Vanfield, Narris,
Speaker 1: Jada Pinkett Smith, Amanda Brown, and Fallon jethro Co Executive
Speaker 1: producer sim Hoti, segment producer Ash Francis, Associate producer Erica Ron,
Speaker 1: editor and mixer Calvin Vailis. Positively GAM is in partnership
Speaker 1: with Art nineteen. It's at the Bot