Urban farms help residents of Miami’s fresh-food deserts
“We teach people in the Black and Brown community how to grow food, and then all the fresh produce that we grow we give it back to the community for free.
By Nancy Dahlberg
Sun Port Charlotte
Nov 6, 2022
Excerpt:
David Roper and Jorge Palacios of the Green Haven Project, a Miami nonprofit organization, are on a mission to sprout urban gardens of healthy food for low-income communities in South Florida. They are tackling these fresh-food deserts in communities of color by educating and organizing youth and volunteers to help create neighborhood-grown fresh food alternatives for these communities.
Nearly five years ago, these two friends were helping out at the Overtown Youth Center and visited the grounds of what is now Green Haven’s first community garden, a 2-acre urban farm in the center of Overtown. “We both immediately knew that we had to try to get in there somehow to support and help to empower the community in the area,” Palacios said.
Their vision was to turn that land into a green oasis, where the fruits of their labor would be shared with the Overtown community for free. Together with two other board members, support from Citizens for a Better South Florida, TD Bank, the Arbor Day Foundation, Curtis Foundation, Miami Foundation and other partners — plus the help of countless volunteers — they turned their vision into reality.
The Green Haven Project has been so successful, they are now starting additional gardens to serve food deserts around South Florida.
“We teach people in the Black and Brown community how to grow food, and then all the fresh produce that we grow we give it back to the community for free. We’re not charging anyone anything because a lot of Hispanic and Black communities across the United States are already food deserts,” said Roper, a social justice and community activist.
