So, Ron, how did you come up with the name, Gangsta
Gardener?
Like, what's that you claiming, homie?
Well I'm claiming the gangsta sect.
Gangsters, if you ain't a gardener, you ain't gangster.
[LAUGHTER]
Now you started 10 years ago, because you
wanted your community--
Or so.
10 or so.
10 or-- back in 1800s we did it at school.
I learned how to do it.
That's how you learned, in school?
That's how you learned how to garden?
Well, we got a half-assed lesson in school.
Because you would get the Petri dish and you
put the paper towel.
Did you do that?
Yeah, the seed.
You put the seed.
It was like, oh my God.
You see it grow and then they go, next.
They didn't show us the sexy part.
No.
The sexy part is, put that in the soil.
OK, so you can get 100 more seeds and you can sell that.
In a meal.
Why did they not give us that part of the lesson?
Because they want you to go to the grocery store.
They don't want you to know how to feed yourself.
That's how I feel, anyway.
Well, Mr. Perry says, "If you can't feed yourself,
you can't free yourself."
That part, that part.
[APPLAUSE]
Now, you started doing these community gardens.
You started doing random gardens in a community.
Right?
And then the city got on you, and then what did you do?
I didn't stop.
Well long story short, kind of sort of.
I had an arrest warrant out for me.
So I got in trouble for growing food on this strip of land
called, The Parkway.
Some people come hail strips or whatever.
And I fought them.
I said, you're not bringing any healthy food
to our neighborhoods.
Don't stop me from doing it.
You're not bringing any beauty to our neighborhood.
Don't stop me for trying to change my environment.
It happened twice.
Wow.
But I wound up getting the law changed in LA where you can now
plant food on your parkway, throughout the whole city.
Wow, I commend you for that.
Thank you.
We out here getting laws changed.
Getting out here, getting gangster.
That part, that's gangster when you changing laws.
Now some people say, they call South Central a food desert.
Now I know what a food desert is.
Can you explain that for the people that
don't know what that means?
I call them, I call places like that a food prison.
Because you have to ask permission for everything.
And it's by design that there's no healthy food
in our neighborhoods.
In these black, brown, red neighborhoods.
Because they're keeping us in a certain mindset.
And they're keeping our health in a certain place.
So I went against--
I'm totally against it.
Don't stop me from trying to be healthy,
from trying to beautify my community.
And that's what this is all about.
This is not even about food to me.
This is about humanity.
First and foremost, it's about equality.
I tell people food is that-- of what I do, food is about,
to me, is about that much.
First of all, this is about freedom.
I'm trying to show people how to be free.
Now how hard is it to start a garden?
Because that garden could be your freedom garden.
I like to call mine, my victory.
Yeah.
I heard you pretty deep in it.
Yeah.
I like to grow food.
But how hard is it to start one?
It's not.
I mean, actually, if we get this cup.
Put a hole in it so that the plant won't choke itself.
You can have a garden.
People have this thing, it's hard work.
It's not hard work.
People have been growing food for millennia.
We've been always growing food.
I mean, food is necessity.
But to see, the thing with your cousins,
they have this disdain because of that--
My cousins?
Yeah, your cousins.
Oh, you're going to put them on me?
OK.
Well you know that.
What was that called?
Right, right.
We gonna be back with more Ron while he talk about my cousins.
We'll be right back with more of this.
We're back with the Gangsta Gardener, Ron Finley.
Now Ron, I'm a run something by you, OK?
OK.
Now you said-- you said, "Change your food
can change your life."?
If you change your food, you can change your life.
Now what does that mean?
Just like that.
I mean, food becomes part of our DNA.
Because you're eating it, you're ingesting it.
So a lot of times, in our neighborhood,
there's no health-- as you know.
There's no healthy food around.
So what is that going--
it's going to change the metabolism of your body.
And so when you have a child that's
been eating all of these chips, and all this garbage, and all
this manufactured food.
All of a sudden when they start eating a real food,
they don't like the taste of it.
Because their taste, their body has become adapted to this--
Manufactured food.
There you go.
But I'm gonna tell you, when I started eating out my garden,
my whole everything.
I just lit up.
Now tell me this though.
Why on my big, leafy green vegetables,
I be having this white mold?
Now how do you get rid of a white mold?
Powdery Mildew.
Yeah.
Vinegar.
Vinegar?
Vinegar, milk.
There's a lot of different substances you can--
And use all natural, all natural.
I don't put any chemicals whatsoever in my garden.
Me neither.
Because you've got to think, you're ingesting that.
My thing is to show these kids at a young age, the beauty,
the alchemy, the magic.
Because I mean think, it's magic.
I mean, when you think of this teeny seed.
It really is magic.
I be out there like, I'm a real unicorn.
Look what I did.
I took this little dog poop, and I put it right there,
and I made mushrooms.
I can do anything.
That's just me.
No it ain't.
It's not just you.
That's the freedom.
But imagine-- I mean I'm getting to experience that because I
got a masterclass, that you guys should check out if you
haven't.
And with that masterclass, people from all over the world
are sending me these testimonies.
And I mean, sometimes I ain't even [INAUDIBLE]..
Gangsters don't cry, but damn.
They be having you tearing up around this piece.
And now they got my masterclasses.
They started in a California penal system.
Oh wow.
They're growing food in prison.
Men and women prisons in California.
Now, I think last week, they went to New York.
So it's going to be the first masterclass
that they get to see.
Wow.
Well I love what you do.
And Shutterfly cares about supporting
your organization, especially organizations like yours.
Is anybody going pop up.
[INTERPOSING VOICES]
They want to give The Ron Finley Project a check for $10,000.
Oh.
[APPLAUSE]
Yes.
That's it right there.
10 G's.
Thank you, Shutterfly.
There you go, bro.
Let's get a picture.
Ah--