Progress 09/01/16 to 08/31/19
Outputs
Target Audience:"Urban Ag Social Enterprise Incubation for Food and Economic Justice" has been conceived, and is directly benefiting, impacting, and led by residents of some of the most concentrated centers of poverty, unemployment, and violence in the SF Bay Area. Centered on a 2-acre empty lot in the Sobrante Park neighborhood of "deep" East Oakland, this innovative Social Enterprise Farm (SEF) and incubation center is employing and being managed by formerly incarcerated change-makers at Planting Justice, almost all of whom live in East Oakland, where much of Oakland's violent crime, unemployment, and poverty are concentrated. PJ staff-leaders, like residents of the surrounding community, have themselves survived through the traumas of multi-generational economic disenfranchisement, mass incarceration, violence and gangs, the criminalization of addiction and the lack of addiction recovery services, the deportation of parents, and the pain and suffering associated with being unable to feed your children, your siblings, or yourself enough healthy food. With a "second chance at life", as Anthony Forrest of PJ likes to say, PJ staff are transforming themselves by dedicating their lives in service of their community: growing food and teaching others how to grow food sustainably in the city, mentoring and building long-term relationships with youth and young adults also at risk of violence and incarceration, and building social enterprises that create living-wage jobs in their community while increasing access to organic, delicious, and healthy food. During the reporting period of 9/1/2016-8/31/2019, Planting Justice completed the infrastructure for this Social Enterprise Farm and Incubation Center, enabling PJ to develop new partnerships and drastically expand upon its impact in the community. In a city with one of the highest concentration of non-profit organizations in the country, there are no nonprofit community organizations that operate in Sobrante Park, no grocery stores (the nearest is Safeway 2.5 miles away), no farmers' markets, no supportive services, no access to organic produce at all. Unemployment among black young adults is projected at more than 50%, (and 80% for formerly incarcerated black men), household income is roughly 20% less than in Oakland as a whole, the value of houses is half that of Oakland as a whole, and the violent crime rate is 150% of Oakland's average, and 4x that of the state average. This project prioritizes living-wage job creation and social entrepreneurship, specifically for formerly incarcerated people and those at risk of incarceration, because mass incarceration plants seeds of multi-generational trauma - in mothers, fathers, and children of current and future generations - reaping violence, poverty, and hunger in urban communities like ours across the U.S. What we hear and experience while gardening and learning with hundreds of formerly incarcerated people in prisons, jails, and juvenile-detention facilities since 2009, and from our formerly incarcerated staff, is this: legal, dignified job opportunities simply don't exist in the community, and yet this is exactly what's needed to keep families whole, housed, fed, and safe. While opportunities to garden are healing in themselves by helping participants grow their self-esteem, resilience, and connection to themselves/nature, they need to be accompanied by opportunities for living-wage livelihoods or they aren't truly accessible nor helping to solve urgent underlying economic injustices. This work is quite literally about surviving and remaining free. During this reporting period, just one of Planting Justice's 20 formerly incarcerated staff members was reincarcerated on a new offense, the first person out of PJ's 40 formerly incarcerated staff members since 2009 to be reincarcerated on a new charge (compare this 3% recidivism rate to CA's 60% state recidivism rate!). Instead, they are transforming blighted land in their own community to be a source of nourishment, beauty, refuge and hope for their own families and communities. Changes/Problems:
Nothing Reported
What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?Rolling River's founders have brought 30 years of experience with their commitment to provide intensive training and ongoing close mentorship for PJ's staff, to support PJ's expansion of their successful business, and the continuation and deepening impact of their legacy. Rolling River Nursery's founders visited the nursery twelve times during this reporting period for day-long staff development trainings, building off of the 80-page nursery manual they created for PJ staff, complete with month-by-month guides, tutorials, propagation information for each species, shipping information, customer service, and other trade secrets. As of 8/31/19, the nursery has 16 full time employees making living-wages with benefits. Our nursery staff includes 14 people who have barriers to employment who were also born and raised in the nursery's Sobrante Park neighborhood in East Oakland, all of whom live within 2 blocks of the nursery site. These staff developed new professional skills related to nursery management, value added products, customer relations, online marketing and sales, website development/maintenance, plant propagation, irrigation, construction, greenhouse management, integrated pest management, organic certification and practices, fertigation and organic fertilization methods, and annual vegetable production. These staff then participated in "train-the-trainer" activities that enabled them to share what they were learning with other members of their community. We are happy to report that long-term residents of the community now entirely run the nursery and educational programming at the site, with all the skills needed to run each aspect of the project successfully transferred to local residents/staff. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?PJ held monthly potlucks for local community members, showcasing healthy food, activities for children, seasonal celebrations, arts and culture, and educational programming to hep disseminate the results of this work to hundreds of members of our local communitiy. These potlucks doubled as opportunities to hear directly from our community about any concerns, ideas for improvement, and needs that the community had regarding the project. The project results were also disseminated via monthly email blasts that went to more than 19,000 community residents, and to over 35,000 people via social media and PJ's website. During the grant period, the nursery has also achieved excellent national press coverage in the New York Times Sunday Business Section, and excellent regional press regarding its unique and inspiring partnership with the Ohlone, the First Peoples of the CA Bay Area, through the Sogorea Te' Land Trust. Please see these articles here: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/17/business/urban-farming-exconvicts-recidivism.html https://civileats.com/2018/02/08/returning-stolen-land-to-native-tribes-one-lot-at-a-time/ What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?
Nothing Reported
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
Due in part to CFP support, PJ's 2-acre nursery and organization headquarters in Sobrante Park continues to meet our wildest expectations, dreams, hopes, and goals for this organization. These 2-acres house the continent's largest and most biodiverse collection of certified organic fruit trees, and were entirely transformed during this reporting period, with the construction of 4 new large greenhouses, 4,000 linear feet of nursery benches holding up 30,000 potted trees, a large community/teaching garden, space for indigenous ceremony, cultural and healing justice programming (in partnership with native Ohlone leaders at the Sogorea Te' Land Trust), the only public outdoor gathering space in a neighborhood that lacks any public park, and educational space that houses empowering programming for thousands of youth and adults/year. This is a truly unique social entrepreneurial project working at the intersections of racial justice, economic justice, environmental justice, social justice, criminal justice reform, community healing, and indigenous rights: 1) The project is now entirely community-led: 14 of PJ's 16 full-time staff at the nursery are long-time community residents. PJ's Co-Founders and Co-Directors (Gavin Raders and Haleh Zandi) are not at all needed by the project for operations, with all direction skill-sets held by local staff; 2) Site infrastructure is now complete, given the completion of Sogorea Te' Land Trust's Ceremonial Arbor (the first of its kind on native Ohlone land in more than 250 years), the completion of the Emergency Preparedness and Disaster Relief Hub onsite, and the recent completion of a 30' yurt classroom, which can comfortably sit 40-50 people for educational/community building programming; 3) PJ and Sogorea Te' Land Trust have teamed up to host 1,250 East Oakland residents this past year alone, for educational programming, celebrations, and ceremony related to building barriers across difference; holistic health; transforming personal and community trauma; and hard-skills related to survival (growing food, plants as medicine, harvesting water, emergency preparedness); and 4) PJ's focus on economic justice and interpersonal healing is enabling critically important community members to break the cycles of incarceration and stay at home with their families where they are needed most. Only 1 out of 42 formerly incarcerated staff members have returned to prison or jail on a new charge in the past ten years! Sobrante Park residents own the process and implementation of this project, front to back. 4 of PJ's 8 democratically elected leadership council members are long-time residents of the project site. All educators and case managers for PJ's trauma-informed program with justice-involved youth from the community are long-term residents of the community as well. Indigenous elders from Sogorea Te' Land Trust include Corrina and Deja Gould, who not only live in Sobrante Park, but they trace their ancestry back to Lisjan Ohlone indians who lived here for 10,000 years with a probable village site very close to the nursery along the creek. These culture bearers are helping newer residents of Sobrante Park reconnect with spirit, nature, ancestors and ancestral knowledge/support through their guidance, mentorship, and leadership onsite. As each resident leader also brings with them a large family and social network, this work is literally changing the culture of the neighborhood, to include greater empathy and alliance between monolingual Spanish speaking residents, black residents, and indigenous community members, and a more palpable and tangible focus on the intersections between personal and community health/wellness, access to nature/plant medicine, and prevention of violence/incarceration/diet and stress related disease. Additional Accomplishments per Projected Outcome Outcome 1.1: Planting Justice continued to operate a community garden onsite, open 6 days/week, for anyone in the community to come and harvest at will, for free. Planting Justice continued to stock a weekly free-farm-stand, operating every Monday, that distributes produce grown in the community garden on-site, as well as produce harvested from dozens of other gardens PJ has built throughout Oakland, supplemented further by new partnerships with other local farms who began to donate their excess produce for PJ's weekly free farm stand. . Approximately 2250 people increased their access to nutrient-dense organic produce through harvesting from the community garden and participating in the free-farm-stand. Outcome 1.2: The nursery has made fruit and nut trees widely available to a diverse customer base, built connections between multiple sectors of the food system through its plant propagation and distribution, and empower 5000 nursery customers to develop the confidence and skills to produce their own edible tree crops, thereby increasing their food self-reliance. Outcome 2.1: Planting Justice created 16 new living-wage jobs at the nursery during the CFP reporting period, leading to the creation of vibrant and sustainable economic development in East Oakland. Out of the total number of new jobs created during this grant over the past 3 years, 14 of those jobs have been created for formerly incarcerated and "at-risk" people. Outcome 2.2: 14 of these 16 new staff members are formerly incarcerated people and residents of the very community the nursery is located, increasing their economic stability and improving quality-of-life indicators for "at-risk" staff and their families. Outcome 2.3: No progress on aquaponics, as PJ staff has been at capacity establishing nursery infrastructure and keeping up with propagation, production, shipping, and education. PJ decided to begin pursuing a neighboring 3-acre property that would be a better site for aquaponics, providing more room for the nursery, community gardens, and ecucational/gathering space at 319 105th Avenue. We are pleased to say....Planting Justice is now in contract for this property! It is just three doors down from our CFP project site, and we are absolutely thrilled to have finally found a location for a worker-cooperative aquaponics incubator farm. Outcome 3.1: The nursery served as a host-site for more than 3250 low-income residents during the grant period, the majority of whom are high school students at Oakland Public School. These visitors participated in free urban farming curriculum to help them to grow food safely and sustainably in the city, and increase the resilience and food self-reliance of low-income urban residents. Outcome 3.2: These 3250 educational program participants also completed nutrition/culinary arts/holistic wellness curriculum modules during their visits, to empower youth, adults, and seniors with the knowledge and confidence to enhance their food purchasing and food-preparation skills as well as their knowledge of the role nutrition plays in wellness and preventative care. Outcome 3.3: The nursery served as a main educational center for over 100 beginning farmers in five various 4-month cohorts over the CFP grant 3-year grant period, with support from NIFA's BFRDP program. 100% of these participants were socially disadvantaged beginning farmers who completed 150 hours of combined hands-on training and educational courses. Each cohort completed 20 educational modules that comprise Certificate in Applied Agroecology training program, completing curriculum modules in the following agri-preneurial subjects: Writing your Farm Business Plan;Getting Start-up Financing/Securing Access to Capital; Securing Access to Land and Managing and Growing your Farm Business; Planting Strategies and Farm Design to Maximize Economic Yield and Minimize Financial Inputs; Employment and Human Resources Training; Value-Added Processing; legal considerations, direct marketing, customer relations, and local market analysis.
Publications
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Progress 09/01/17 to 08/31/18
Outputs
Target Audience:"Urban Ag Social Enterprise Incubation for Food and Economic Justice" has been conceived, and is directly benefiting, impacting, and led by residents of some of the most concentrated centers of poverty, unemployment, and violence in the SF Bay Area. Centered on a 2-acre empty lot in the Sobrante Park neighborhood of "deep" East Oakland, this innovative Social Enterprise Farm (SEF) and incubation center is employing and being managed by formerly incarcerated change-makers at Planting Justice, almost all of whom live in East Oakland, where much of Oakland's violent crime, unemployment, and poverty are concentrated. PJ staff-leaders, like residents of the surrounding community, have themselves survived through the traumas of multi-generational economic disenfranchisement, mass incarceration, violence and gangs, the criminalization of addiction and the lack of addiction recovery services, the deportation of parents, and the pain and suffering associated with being unable to feed your children, your siblings, or yourself enough healthy food. With a "second chance at life", as Anthony Forrest of PJ likes to say, PJ staff are transforming themselves by dedicating their lives in service of their community: growing food and teaching others how to grow food sustainably in the city, mentoring and building long-term relationships with youth and young adults also at risk of violence and incarceration, and building social enterprises that create living-wage jobs in their community while increasing access to organic, delicious, and healthy food. During the reporting period of 9/1/2017-8/31/2018, Planting Justice completed the infrastructure for this Social Enterprise Farm and Incubation Center, enabling PJ to develop new partnerships and drastically expand upon its impact in the community. In a city with one of the highest concentration of non-profit organizations in the country, there are no nonprofit community organizations that operate in Sobrante Park, no grocery stores (the nearest is Safeway 2.5 miles away), no farmers' markets, no supportive services, no access to organic produce at all. Unemployment among black young adults is projected at more than 50%, (and 80% for formerly incarcerated black men), household income is roughly 20% less than in Oakland as a whole, the value of houses is half that of Oakland as a whole, and the violent crime rate is 150% of Oakland's average, and 4x that of the state average. This project prioritizes living-wage job creation and social entrepreneurship, specifically for formerly incarcerated people and those at risk of incarceration, because mass incarceration plants seeds of multi-generational trauma - in mothers, fathers, and children of current and future generations - reaping violence, poverty, and hunger in urban communities like ours across the U.S. What we hear and experience while gardening and learning with hundreds of formerly incarcerated people in prisons, jails, and juvenile-detention facilities since 2009, and from our formerly incarcerated staff, is this: legal, dignified job opportunities simply don't exist in the community, and yet this is exactly what's needed to keep families whole, housed, fed, and safe. While opportunities to garden are healing in themselves by helping participants grow their self-esteem, resilience, and connection to themselves/nature, they need to be accompanied by opportunities for living-wage livelihoods or they aren't truly accessible nor helping to solve urgent underlying economic injustices. This work is quite literally about surviving and remaining free. During this reporting period, just one of Planting Justice's 20 formerly incarcerated staff members was reincarcerated on a new offense, the first person out of PJ's 40 formerly incarcerated staff members since 2009 to be reincarcerated on a new charge (compare this 3% recidivism rate to CA's 60% state recidivism rate!). Instead, they are transforming blighted land in their own community to be a source of nourishment, beauty, refuge and hope for their own families and communties. Changes/Problems:
Nothing Reported
What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?Rolling River's founders have brought 30 years of experience with their commitment to provide intensive training and ongoing close mentorship for PJ's staff, to support PJ's expansion of their successful business, and the continuation and deepening impact of their legacy. Rolling River Nursery's founders visited the nursery four times during this reporting period for day-long staff development trainings, building off of the 80-page nursery manual they created for PJ staff, complete with month-by-month guides, tutorials, propagation information for each species, shipping information, customer service, and other trade secrets. As of 8/31/18, the nursery has 15 full time employees making living-wages with benefits. Our nursery staff includes 8 formerly incarcerated people who were born and raised in the nursery's Sobrante Park neighborhood in East Oakland, all of whom live within 2 blocks of the nursery site. These staff developed new professional skills related to nursery management, value added products, customer relations, online marketing and sales, website development/maintenance, plant propagation, irrigation, construction, greenhouse management, integrated pest management, organic certification and practices, fertigation and organic fertilization methods, and annual vegetable production. These staff then participated in "train-the-trainer" activities that enabled them to share what they were learning with other members of their community. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?PJ held monthly potlucks for local community members, showcasing healthy food, activities for children, seasonal celebrations, arts and culture, and ecucational programming to hep disseminate the results of this work to hundreds of members of our local communtiy. These potlucks doubled as opportunities to hear directly from our community about any concerns, ideas for improvement, and needs that the community had regarding the project. The project results were also disseminated via monthly email blasts that went to more than 19,000 community residents, and to over 35,000 people via social media. During the grant period, the nursery has also achieved excellent national press coverage in the New York Times Sunday Business Section, and excellent regional press regarding its unique and inspiring partnership with the Ohlone, the First Peoples of the CA Bay Area, through the Sogorea Te' Land Trust. Please see these articles here: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/17/business/urban-farming-exconvicts-recidivism.html https://civileats.com/2018/02/08/returning-stolen-land-to-native-tribes-one-lot-at-a-time/ What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?PJ is looking at major new market opportunities in 2018-2019. PJ staff began selling nursery stock, value added farm products, and tee-shirts at local farmers' markets in Fall 2017, and we are now at 5 weekly farmers' markets, three in Berkeley and two in Oakland, which are driving up immediate sales, and introducing our nursery to hundreds if not thousand of potential new customers,. A friend and ally of Planting Justice, who happens to be a Search Engine Optimization professional, is running Planting Justice's $10,000/month Google Ad Grant, testing, publishing, and analyzing new online ads, and helping to manage a nearly complete overhaul of the website to integrate proven SEO technology to drive national online sales. As a result, PJ has 20% more online orders in 2018 than at this juncture in 2017, and 80% of our customers are first-time shoppers. Under his guidance, PJ will be migrating Rolling River Nursery's website to a new platform over the next reporting period, to greater take advantage of available Customer Relationship Management and SEO tools.
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
New Infrastructure: PJ's Nursery in Sobrante Park, with rapid development made possible in large part by NIFA support, has proven to be the right risk to take at the right time. There is literally nothing like it in the world. These 2-acres house the continent's largest and most biodiverse collection of certified organic fruit trees (now 1200 heirloom varieties!) on a former empty lot. These 2-acres were entirely transformed during this reporting period, with the construction of 4 new large greenhouses, 4,000 linear feet of nursery benches holding up 30,000 potted trees (built from salvaged eucalyptus trees that the county cut down in the Oakland hills, which PJ milled onsite into lumber for nursery benches), a large community/teaching garden, space for indigenous ceremony, cultural and healing justice programming (in partnership with native Ohlone leaders at the Sogorea Te' Land Trust), the only public outdoor gathering space in a neighborhood that lacks any public park, and educational space that houses empowering programming for thousands of youth and adults/year. Expansion in Impact and Scope: As of August 31 2018, the nursery has accomplished the following 1) increased its revenue from $180,000/year before it came to PJ, to a projected $240,000 in sales during the reporting period; 2) grown to provide living wage full-time employment with benefits for 15 people, including 13 long-time neighborhood residents and 10 formerly incarcerated people; 3) become a site for a dizzying array of public and private partnerships (see "Partnerships", below); 4) housed educational programs sharing strategies for mindfulness, healthy eating, culinary arts/nutrition, and urban agriculture to 3,000 Oakland residents (primarily immediate neighbors and high-school aged youth from across Oakland; 5) served as a site for cultural programming, storytelling, public art construction, community healing, and youth-arts programming for over 500 local residents, and 6) provided space for a nationally-recognized partnership between Planting Justice and Sogorea Te' Land Trust, an indigenous woman-led land trust that centers indigenous education, ceremony, and healing for native and non-native residents alike. A Home for New Partnerships: PJ's nursery has deepened ongoing partnerships and cultivated new funding relationships with a diverse array of entities, including the Alameda County Public Health Department (who sponsored 350 free fruit trees for Sobrante Park residents in 2018 and who have pledged to purchase 500 trees for distribution to Sobrante Park Residents in 2019), Alameda County StopWaste, Alameda County Probation Department (a new funding partner who provided funding through AB109), Alameda County Behavioral Health Services, the Bay Area Air Quality Management District (a new funding partner), Alameda County Flood Control (who have contracted the nursery to grow hundreds of trees and thousands of riparian shrubs for creek restoration along San Leandro Creek), Alameda County Violence Prevention Initiative for Sobrante Park, City of Oakland's Department of Race and Equity (new funding partner), regional and local foundations, OUSD and Kaiser (who are interested in sourcing hundreds of thousands of pounds of food from PJ farms) and dozens upon dozens of community partners. Local community partnerships include the Sobrante Park Leadership Council, the Sobrante Park Resident Action Council, Roots Community Health Clinic, Madison Park Academy, Lionel Wilson College Prep, Lighthouse Middle School, Combat Paper, buildOn, the Electric Smoothie Lab Apothecary, the National Lawyers Guild (who are offering "Know Your Rights" Trainings for PJ staff and Sobrante Park community member focused on immigration concerns and police-stops), Mycelium Youth Network (a new project fiscally sponsored by PJ that is offering 4-week trainings for youth combining indigenous wisdom with disaster preparedness trainings, and individual community leaders, activists, and culture workers who help to hold space for healing services, ceremony, and cultural events at the nursery. Additional Accomplishments per Projected Outcome Outcome 1.1: Planting Justice continued to operate a community garden onsite, open 6 days/week, for anyone in the community to come and harvest at will, for free. Planting Justice continued to stock a weekly free-farm-stand, operating every Monday, that distributes produce grown in the community garden on-site, as well as produce harvested from dozens of other gardens PJ has built throughout Oakland, supplemented further by new partnerships with other local farms who began to donate their excess produce for PJ's weekly free farm stand. . Approximately 1250 people increased their access to nutrient-dense organic produce through harvesting from the community garden and participating in the free-farm-stand. Outcome 1.2: The nursery has made fruit and nut trees widely available to a diverse customer base, built connections between multiple sectors of the food system through its plant propagation and distribution, and empower 3000 nursery customers to develop the confidence and skills to produce their own edible tree crops, thereby increasing their food self-reliance. Outcome 2.1: Planting Justice created 5 new living-wage jobs at the nursery during the reporting period, leading to the creation of vibrant and sustainable economic development in East Oakland. The total new jobs created during this grant period (over the past two years) is now 15, with 13 of those jobs created for formerly incarcerated and "at-risk" people. Outcome 2.2: 13 of these 15 new staff members are formerly incarcerated people and residents of the very community the nursery is located, increasing their economic stability and improving quality-of-life indicators for "at-risk" staff and their families. Outcome 2.3: No progress on aquaponics, as PJ staff has been at capacity establishing nursery infrastructure and keeping up with propagation, production, shipping, and education. PJ decided to begin pursuing a neighboring 3-acre property that would be a better site for aquaponics, providing more room for the nursery, community gardens, and ecucational/gathering space at 319 105th Avenue. Outcome 3.1: The nursery served as a host-site for more than 1250 low-income residents during the reporting period, the majority of whom are high school students at Oakland Public School. These visitors participated in free urban farming curriculum to help them to grow food safely and sustainably in the city, and increase the resilience and food self-reliance of low-income urban residents. Outcome 3.2: These 1250 educational program participants also completed nutrition/culinary arts/holistic wellness curriculum modules during their visits, to empower youth, adults, and seniors with the knowledge and confidence to enhance their food purchasing and food-preparation skills as well as their knowledge of the role nutrition plays in wellness and preventative care. Outcome 3.3: The nursery served as a main educational center for 33 beginning farmers in one 4-month cohorts, with support from NIFA's BFRDP program. 100% of these participants were socially disadvantaged beginning farmers who completed 150 hours of combined hands-on training and educational courses. Each cohort completed 20 educational modules that comprise Certificate in Applied Agroecology training program, completing curriculum modules in the following agri-preneurial subjects: Writing your Farm Business Plan;Getting Start-up Financing/Securing Access to Capital; Securing Access to Land and Managing and Growing your Farm Business; Planting Strategies and Farm Design to Maximize Economic Yield and Minimize Financial Inputs; Employment and Human Resources Training; Value-Added Processing; legal considerations, direct marketing, customer relations, and local market analysis.
Publications
|
Progress 09/01/16 to 08/31/17
Outputs
Target Audience:"Urban Ag Social Enterprise Incubation for Food and Economic Justice" has been conceived, and is directly benefiting, impacting, and led by residents of some of the most concentrated centers of poverty, unemployment, and violence in the SF Bay Area. Centered on a 2-acre empty lot in the Sobrante Park neighborhood of "deep" East Oakland, this innovative Social Enterprise Farm (SEF) and incubation center is employing and being managed by formerly incarcerated change-makers at Planting Justice, almost all of whom live in East Oakland, where much of Oakland's violent crime, unemployment, and poverty are concentrated. PJ staff-leaders, like residents of the surrounding community, have themselves survived through the traumas of multi-generational economic disenfranchisement, mass incarceration, violence and gangs, the criminalization of addiction and the lack of addiction recovery services, the deportation of parents, and the pain and suffering associated with being unable to feed your children, your siblings, or yourself enough healthy food. With a "second chance at life", as Anthony Forrest of PJ likes to say, PJ staff are transforming themselves by dedicating their lives in service of their community: growing food and teaching others how to grow food sustainably in the city, mentoring and building long-term relationships with youth and young adults also at risk of violence and incarceration, and building social enterprises that create living-wage jobs in their community while increasing access to organic, delicious, and healthy food. During the reporting period of 9/1/2016-8/31/2017, Planting Justice began to transform a vacant 2 acre lot on 105th Avenue in arguably the most underserved, segregated, and impoverished neighborhood in Oakland, CA into an urban social enterprise farm, education/training center, and place of sanctuary, In a city with one of the highest concentration of non-profit organizations in the country, there are no nonprofit community organizations that operate in Sobrante Park, no grocery stores (the nearest is Safeway 2.5 miles away), no farmers' markets, no supportive services, no access to organic produce at all. Unemployment among black young adults is projected at more than 50%, (and 80% for formerly incarcerated black men), household income is roughly 20% less than in Oakland as a whole, the value of houses is half that of Oakland as a whole, and the violent crime rate is 150% of Oakland's average, and 4x that of the state average. This project prioritizes living-wage job creation and social entrepreneurship, specifically for formerly incarcerated people and those at risk of incarceration, because mass incarceration plants seeds of multi-generational trauma - in mothers, fathers, and children of current and future generations - reaping violence, poverty, and hunger in urban communities like ours across the U.S. What we hear and experience while gardening and learning with hundreds of formerly incarcerated people in prisons, jails, and juvenile-detention facilities since 2009, and from our formerly incarcerated staff, is this: legal, dignified job opportunities simply don't exist in the community, and yet this is exactly what's needed to keep families whole, housed, fed, and safe. While opportunities to garden are healing in themselves by helping participants grow their self-esteem, resilience, and connection to themselves/nature, they need to be accompanied by opportunities for living-wage livelihoods or they aren't truly accessible nor helping to solve urgent underlying economic injustices. This work is quite literally about surviving and remaining free. During this reporting period, not one of Planting Justice's 17 formerly incarcerated staff members have been reincarcerated on a new offense, compared to a 60% state recidivism rate. Instead, they are transforming blighted land in their own community to be a source of nourishment, beauty, refuge and hope for their own families and communties. Changes/Problems:
Nothing Reported
What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?Rolling River's founders have brought 30 years of experience with their commitment to provide intensive training and ongoing close mentorship for PJ's staff, to support PJ's expansion of their successful business, and the continuation and deepening impact of their legacy. Rolling River Nursery's founders developed and delivered an 80-page nursery manual to PJ staff, complete with month-by-month guides, tutorials, propagation information for each species, shipping information, customer service, and other trade secrets. As of 8/31/17, the nursery has 10 full time employees making living-wages with benefits. Our nursery staff includes 8 formerly incarcerated people who were born and raised in the nursery's Sobrante Park neighborhood in East Oakland, all of whom live within 2 blocks of the nursery site. These staff developed new professional skills related to nursery management, value added products, customer relations, online marketing and sales, website development/maintenance, plant propagation, irrigation, construction, greenhouse management, integrated pest management, organic certification and practices, fertigation and organic fertilization methods, and annual vegetable production. These staff then participated in "train-the-trainer" activities that enabled them to share what they were learning with other members of their community. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?PJ held monthly potlucks for local community members, showcasing healthy food, activities for children, seasonal celebrations, arts and culture, and ecucational programming to hep disseminate the results of this work to hundreds of members of our local communtiy. These potlucks doubled as opportunities to hear directly from our community about any concerns, ideas for improvement, and needs that the communtiy had regarding the project. The project results were also disseminated via monthly email blasts that went to more than 15,000 community residents, and to over 25,000 people via social media. During the grant period, the nursery has also achieved excellent local press coverage in the San Jose Mercury News, the Oakland Tribune, and the East Bay Express. Please see these articles: http://www.eastbaytimes.com/breaking-news/ci_30206784/urban-farm-planet-justice-adds-east-oakland-site http://www.eastbayexpress.com/oakland/when-meaningful-work-means-healthy-food/Content?oid=4755829 What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?In reporting period 9/1/17-8/31/18, Planting Justice plans to accomplish the following: 1) Complete nursery infrastructure 2) Expand educational programming and participation of the local community in community-building and educational events 3) create new living wage jobs 4) Expand upon our cross-sector partnerships to broaden the reach, scope, and impact of the project
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
Planting Justice's core programs are income generating, replicable, and designed to communicate the Planting Justice story to a much wider audience. PJ made major strides during the reporting period towards fulfilling its ambitious objectives and expanding our long-term impact. PJ was able to leverage the NIFA's support to obtain matching funding from several other individuals, foundations, and programs, that raised $1,350,000 in capital funding and enabled us to accomplish the following milestones: PJ closed escrow on a $750,000 property acquisition of 319 105th Avenue in Oakland, a 2 acre formerly empty lot in the Sobrante Park neighborhood of East Oakland. A successful Kickstarter campaign in 2016 raised an additional $104,000 towards the $150,000 downpayment, from nearly 2,000 small donors in our local region. In a massive effort, PJ successfully loaded and transported Rolling River Nursery, including its 28,000 potted perennial plants, from the Klamath River near the Oregon border, to the East Oakland property PJ completed a major portion of the East Oakland site's infrastructure, to create a thriving, highly functional, and organically certified permanent home for Rolling River Nursery in Oakland, AND we increased our nursery sales 15% in our first year, 2016, to nearly $210,000 in gross sales PJ is generating tremendous support from the immediate Sobrante Park neighborhood for the nursery, by 1) creating 10 living-wage jobs for people born and raised there, who are well-respected and representative of the community; 2) maintaining active participation and providing value and meeting space to local coalitions, neighborhood leadership councils, and small organizations and 3) offering seasonal family-friendly celebrations that include good food, educational programming in urban ag/health/wellness, and seasonal arts and culture activities designed, initiated, and executed by our staff from the neighborhood. This reporting period saw the most significant economic investment in Sobrante Park in a generation: the establishment of our commercial nursery and aquaponics training center in East Oakland, home to Rolling River Nursery. The nursery has passed all agricultural inspections, all bureaucratic clearances, and achieved full organic certification, to ship nationally from the site, which we have been doing for the entirety of the reporting period. More than 2,200 customers purchased trees from the nursery. Additional Accomplishments Outcome 1.1: Planting Justice built a community garden onsite, open 6 days/week, for anyone in the community to come and harvest at will, for free. Planting Jusitce also instituted a weekly free-farm-stand, operating every Monday, that distributes produce grown in the community garden on-site, as well as produce harvested from dozens of other gardens PJ has built throughout Oakland. Approximately 850 people increased their access to nutrient-dense organic produce through harvesting from the community garden and participating in the free-farm-stand. Outcome 1.2: The nursery has made fruit and nut trees widely available to a diverse customer base, built connections between multiple sectors of the food system through its plant propagation and distribution, and empower 2200 nursery customers to develop the confidence and skills to produce their own edible tree crops, thereby increasing their food self-reliance. Outcome 2.1: Planting Justice created 10 new living-wage jobs at the nursery during the reporting period, leading to the creation of vibrant and sustainable economic development in East Oakland. Outcome 2.2: 8 of these 10 new staff members are formerly incarcerated people and residents of the very community the nursery is located, increasing their economic stability and improving quality-of-life indicators for "at-risk" staff and their families. Outcome 2.3: No progress on aquaponics, as PJ staff has been at capacity establishing nursery infrastructure and keeping up with propagation, production, shipping, and education Outcome 3.1: The nursery served as a host-site for more than 750 low-income residents during the reporting period, the majority of whom are high school students at Oakland Public School. These visitors participated in free urban farming curriculum to help them to grow food safely and sustainably in the city, and increase the resilience and food self-reliance of low-income urban residents. Outcome 3.2: These 750 educational program participants also completed nutirion/culinary arts/holistic wellness curriculum modules during their visits, to empower youth, adults, and seniors with the knowledge and confidence to enhance their food purchasing and food-preparation skills as well as their knowledge of the role nutrition plays in wellness and preventative care. Outcome 3.3: The nursery served as a main educational center for 65 beginning farmers in three 4-month cohorts, with support from NIFA's BFRDP program. 100% of these participants were socially disadvantaged beginning farmers who completed 150 hours of combined hands-on training and educational courses. Each cohort completed 20 educational modules that comprise Certificate in Applied Agroecologytraining program, completing curriculum modules in the following agri-preneurial subjects: Writing your Farm Business Plan;Getting Start-up Financing/Securing Access to Capital; Securing Access to Land and Managing and Growing your FarmBusiness; Planting Strategies and Farm Design to Maximize Economic Yield and Minimize Financial Inputs; Employment andHuman Resources Training; Value-Added Processing; legal considerations, direct marketing, customer relations, and localmarket analysis.
Publications
- Type:
Websites
Status:
Published
Year Published:
2016
Citation:
www.rollingrivernursery.com
www.plantingjustice.org
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