Grow Roots Miami Aims to Transform Food Deserts into Thriving Urban Gardens
Over the summer, Grow Roots will be installing perennial food forest gardens and hosting free educational workshops to grow community connections and mentor young growers.
Josie Gulliksen
Miami New Times
July 15, 2020
Excerpt:
Driven to raise public awareness of systemic racial injustice, disproportionate disparities in the food system, and COVID deaths experienced by the BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color) community in Miami, a seed was planted that became Grow Roots Miami.
The self-described QTBIPOC-led collaboration between Finca Morada, Plant Philosophy, and Urban Oasis Project was formed to create free food-producing gardens for Miami families currently living in food deserts. (Other organizations involved in the effort: Miami Compost Project, Miami Seed Share, Overtown Green Haven Community Garden, Urban Green Works, and the Little River Cooperative.)
“All of us involved in this project have been in food-justice work for many years,” says Grow Roots Miami founder Christina Bouza. “In 2020, we have been working harder than ever, responding to the pressing needs in our Miami community that the pandemic made dramatically more severe.”
Amid the pandemic, the organization is focused on serving Miami’s most vulnerable residents through community gardens, compost projects, and food distribution.
“We know firsthand that food justice is racial justice. With our Grow Roots initiative, we are growing solutions from the root of where these injustices hit home,” Bouza says.
