Growing to educate. Ron Finley tends a garden of organic fruit and vegetables in the “food desert” of the South Los Angeles neighbourhood, where previously only junk food was to be found.
Ron Finley is a gardener born and raised in South Los Angeles, a neighbourhood known for its poverty and dubbed the home of the "drive-thru" and the "drive-by". The first term refers to places where it is possible to buy products such as junk food without even getting out of your car, and the second to an attack, such as a shooting, carried out directly from a moving vehicle. A neighbourhood where people, as well as falling victim to violence, die from treatable illnesses and where the obesity rate is very high. Tired of having no access to healthy food, of having to travel kilometres to find produce free from pesticides, and above all of witnessing the negative effects of the food system on the people of his neighbourhood, Ron Finley decided to act by starting with the very "problem" of food and turning it into a solution.
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Finley's insight stems from a serious and pressing problem. In the United States, cities are even classified according to how easily residents can walk to shops selling healthy food: where this is difficult, the area is described as a food desert — a place where junk food prevails over fresh produce. People living in these environments can easily find ready-made foods high in fat, calories, salt and sugar, and the risk of obesity or the onset of diet-related illnesses such as diabetes or heart conditions rises exponentially.
Finley lived in this reality. Consider that in his neighbourhood the obesity rate is around five times that of Beverly Hills, an upmarket neighbourhood just 15 kilometres away. This is why he set himself the goal of giving his fellow residents the opportunity to eat healthy food by making it easily accessible.
Together with the urban gardening group LA Green Grounds, in 2010 Finley decided to use the strip of land owned by the city that runs alongside the verge in front of his house to grow food: he planted fruit trees, vegetables and greens. Little by little the strip became a small green forest and local residents began to take an interest and get involved. Before long, however, Finley received an injunction from the city council asking him to remove his plants from the verge as it was public land.
Rather than giving up, Finley and LA Green Grounds fought back: one of the group's members launched a petition on Change.org, gathering 900 signatures and forcing the city council to back down. This sparked the curiosity of journalists and American media outlets, and the project quickly gained widespread recognition. Ron Finley became known around the world as the "gangsta gardener", the rebellious gardener fighting to bring his neighbourhood back to life. To date, together with his organisation, he has created more than twenty shared urban gardens, managing to involve more than 50 people who have joined the gardening courses and meetings with great enthusiasm.
Finley is convinced that a cultural revolution must start from the ground up and through practical action. A shared activity like gardening has all the qualities needed to restore dignity and happiness to a marginalised community such as that of South LA. This approach is also therapeutic, especially in a city: it makes it easier for residents to build social bonds, beautifies the urban landscape and allows everyone, including young people, to regain control of their neighbourhood and therefore of their own future.
The garden thus becomes a means of educating, a tool for regenerating the neighbourhood. Through gardening and the reclamation of neglected land, Finley has seized a great opportunity: teaching young people how to take care of their communities in order to live better and healthier lives. His goals now are to offer young people employment opportunities and get them off the streets, as well as to introduce them to the joy, pride and honour of growing their own food.