When Karen Washington, a black urban farmer in the Bronx, learned that she was the recipient of the $10,000 AllStar prize, she was dumbfounded. Her mouth hung open in shock. Oversized check in hand from NationSwell and NBCUniversal, Washington stood onstage in silence, a rare moment of speechlessness from a charismatic storyteller.
Now that a month’s passed, NationSwell caught up with Washington to discuss that emotional moment and her future plans. Washington has already doled out some of the funds in New York City’s poorest borough and hopes her giving will inspire more donors to step forward to help her match the prize and start a community foundation that will back other local activists.
Looking back to the NationSwell Summit in early November, Washington thought she had no chance of winning. “Here I am 61 years of age, and I’m with a younger generation who knew all about social media, and this competition was all about social media,” she says. Her strategy to get online votes? “The only thing I can do is tell my story,” she says, and mobilize folks with some good, old-fashioned word-of-mouth organizing.
After her name was announced, Washington was “just so overwhelmed with emotion,” she says, her voice cracking into a restrained sob. “I guess I never knew how much I was really loved. I never knew how far-reaching it was, the impact that I had on so many people across the world that took the time to vote for me. And that’s when it hit me, right then and there.”
Inspired by that outpouring of love, Washington is sending that affection back to her neighborhood. Already, she’s given money to a community garden to help build a retaining wall, funded an apprenticeship program at a farm and group for young men of color, paid the funeral expenses for a farm school student who died suddenly and contributed to a legal defense fund for black farmers threatened by foreclosure.
Her aim is not to fund big projects that other nonprofits are already working on. Instead, Washington wants to help community activists who can’t get grants elsewhere. She’s looking for the locals who don’t make the headlines — the ones whose operation is too small to have a full-time grant-writer.
Washington is keeping diligent notes about each dollar to track how her impact magnifies. She isn’t asking for anything back, but the money does come with one condition: As soon as the person has a few extra bucks, she asks that he or she pass along the surplus to another activist in need.
As soon her name was announced, Washington thought to herself, “You know what? I won for a reason.” But then she corrected herself. “No, we,” she said. Her family, her gardening friends and fellow farmers, her community. “We won for a reason.”
WATCH: See the Seeds of Change Grown by One Bronx Woman
Homepage photo courtesy of Karen Washington.
Tag: urban gardening
Would You Believe Us If We Said That Food Can Be Free?
We’ve heard about local farms before — from community centers to rooftop gardens — but this farm is ultra local. Just think, the next time you need to add some herbs to your pasta, all you need to do is pop on over to your neighbor’s front yard and grab some fresh basil.
How is this possible? It’s all part of the Food is Free Project, a movement started in January 2012 in Austin, Texas by John VanDeusen Edwards and Jonathan Horstmann, who simply decided to move their backyard garden to the front and give out their harvest completely gratis. To get more of their neighbors on board, they attached a white board next to their garden bed where folks could write their details if they wanted to get involved.
Over the course of three short months, more neighbors became inspired to start their own front-yard gardens, and eventually, the entire block on Joe Sayers Avenue became one large urban farm offering free food to the community, reports the Austin-based publication Tribeza. Gradually, the movement expanded out of the city to about 20 states and countries.
“We realize that though our idea is simple, it is resonating with folks literally across the globe,” Edwards told the publication. “By using our block as a model for others, our ripple can travel farther than we can imagine.”
MORE: How a San Francisco Mom Feeds Her Family With One Teeny, Tiny Farm
If you check out their inspiring Facebook page, you’ll find an impressive online community of 54,000+ participants from around the world who share pictures of their adorable home gardens that include crops like pineapples, tomatoes, and even hydroponic onions.
Skeptics might scoff at such a kumbaya idea of completely free food and neighbors working together, but the movement really seems to be catching on. As one commenter wrote, “Two of my neighbors have stopped to tell me that seeing that I was actually growing food inspired them to plant some too. It’s contagious!”
As we’ve said before, the urban farming revolution is catching on around the country — from New York City to Detroit — giving city dwellers access to lovingly grown, local food year-round. And when getting a fresh veggies for our salads is as easy as going next door, maybe you’ll be inspired to join the revolution, too.
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