- In two weeks, I was able to raise $10,000
to build gardens for 17 different families
and it's doing great.
Got a nice little harvest here.
The beet itself, I like to slice it up.
You could saute it, or if you're putting it in salad,
you could put it in like, apple cider vinegar,
sometimes with a little brown sugar.
I'm Nkoula Badila.
I founded Grow Black Hudson here in Hudson, New York.
I was raised here in Hudson, New York.
It's a small upstate town, pretty diverse.
Grow Black Hudson is a movement to bring us back
to our connection with our food
and our knowledge of our food
and knowing where it comes from, knowing how it grows,
knowing how we could use it to sustain ourselves,
getting into preserving and knowing how to can it
and to use it as medicine.
Along with that, I take a lot of the skills
from my upbringing of connecting to nature
and to dancing and celebration, and then infuse that
into what I bring when I meet these families.
Mmm! (family laughing)
Realizing how gentrified Hudson's really become
really opened up my eyes to also seeing
how little representation of our businesses
were here in town.
Starting this movement, it was very important to me
to make sure that it was Black-run
and make sure that we were reaching
the Black and Brown community to make sure
that it was something for us.
We know our lives matter.
As Black people, we know that our lives matter.
We know that we have a purpose here on this earth
but already Corona was happening.
And then George Floyd's death sparking up
a whole nother revolution of things.
It's very easy for non-Black or Brown people
to come into it, feeling like,
"Oh, well we have these resources
and we know what to do best.
So we're going to come in
and we're going to show you how to do it.
We're going to teach you how to do it."
But I'm coming at it like,
"Well, we were put in a position
to not have access to these things.
So it's not about necessarily that you know better.
It's just that you've been having access
to be able to do these things."
I wanted to bring it forth
and make sure that it was Black-led
because I want to make sure that our community, our youth,
know that we can also support ourselves.
We can also do things for ourselves
and build things for ourselves and also to establish
the visual representation of Black leaders.
Think that it's really helping heal that connection
of us to land, thinking of being on plantations,
a lot of our ancestors being in that position
of wanting to leave that behind,
a feeling that gets connected to being enslaved.
It's really helped heal
those ancestral connections and webs.
- I want to start right there in the corner.
- Yeah, that's perfect.
- [Gardener] Got the collard greens.
Got the strawberry patches up front.
- Yeah, that's a big strawberry patch.
And the work you're doing too
is keeping your body healthy. - Yeah.
- It do. - It do.
I started it actually on Facebook,
on like a Facebook fund me thing.
And I just started at $200
cause it wasn't, you know, I was just like, whatever,
like we just need some soil and some pots.
About a week, just like $10,000 was raised.
And it was just amazing.
I was just like, wow, like, and it really showed me,
people are here willing to help.
Grow Black Hudson was, I would say
officially established on Juneteenth.
And what inspired it was a passion that built up
to want to see this happen for the community.
Just was important for me to make sure
that we're all receiving or at least do my best
to create a space where we all can receive
fresh food, organic food,
for them to be able to have fresh soil
where they can grow their food right outside their door.
Building up the idea of ownership
or being able to have that sovereignty over food.
And food is absolutely a weapon
and they push processed food to continue to cause illnesses
and all these different things that make us suffer
and have like long-term effects.
And knowing that that is a system that exists out there
and that is targeting us.
And knowing that we can do more about it,
using the resources that we have to plant our own food,
it completely shifts the quality of life
because you know it's there, you know you can go outside
and you know that you have food there.
It really changes how you think, too,
as far as security goes.
Grow Black Hudson's definitely connected
so many neighbors because everyone's gardens are visible.
Even people walking by will compliment.
Something new for a lot of them too
is it brings the families together.
(pleasant jazz music)