The South Bronx Shows Off What It Really Means to Get Community Involved in Urban Green Initiatives

In an effort to go green, the South Bronx is waging a tough—but wonderful—battle. An area that faces notorious chronic health problems is increasingly growing its own food, eating healthier and more locally because of it, and involving youth in the change.

The Point community center held the South Bronx Food and Film Expo on a rainy Saturday in early December, and packed the room with activists while promoting involvement in community gardens, urban farming, and healthier eating habits—all in the neighborhood where the asthma rate is among the highest in the country and the diabetes rate the highest in the city. From urban farming to policy activism, said event organizer Adam Liebowitz, "everything that we need to happen in the Bronx was there."

Tough battle

The chronic health problems are attributed to the sewage treatment and power plants in the area, the world's largest food distribution center, and the 60,000 garbage trucks that pass through every week. "The food that's sold at that market never makes it to this neighborhood," said Liebowitz, referring to the lack of fresh produce for sale in the area. "It's the perfect irony of injustice." The new Yankee Stadium, recently constructed just across the street from the old stadium, displaced some of the already existing community resources and set some of the community's efforts back a ways. But as individuals educate their community about nutrition, gardens are sprouting throughout the borough and people are improving their diets.

"You're looking at a room full of people who have basically lost hundreds of pounds," said Stephen Ritz, a teacher who's trying to bring these lessons into the classroom—and encourage his students to take those lessons back out of the classroom and into the community. Many of his students volunteer at The Point, and he boasted about his 93 percent attendance rate: one of the highest in the city.

A real green party

Throughout the event, music was pumping, tables were sprawling with information from how to grow your own food or get involved in a community garden to political efforts to increase access to healthier food, and people were waiting in line for a buffet serving locally-sourced, vegan meals.

A packed screening room in the back showed a few locally made short films and two features: FRESH and What's On Your Plate?—both worth watching as soon as you possibly can.

Majora Carter also showed up, a South Bronx native who has been recognized internationally (and here on Planet Green and Treehugger) for her environmental justice activism. We chatted for a few minutes, and she was just glowing about "the fact that us early pioneers knew that this was something that would literally feed people."

She talked about her most recent effort to get people to think of healthy food as a potential source of job creation, in order to improve not only the physical health of the community, but the economic health as well—they are connected, after all. With increasing interest in nutrition and sustainable, regional food systems, we need to be "thinking of food as an economic opportunity."

Change in motion

The most exciting shift, however, is that as kids learn about food in schools, habits change in the classroom first, but "kids will take that home," said Carter, where they can bring the positive impact to their families as well.

Samantha Serrano is a junior in Ritz's class, and seems to be living proof of just that trend. A diabetes and asthma sufferer, Serrano described how her own habits have changed since she enrolled with the A.C.T.I.O.N. teen leadership program at The Point, where she volunteers three days a week: she used to eat a lot of beef and pork, but eats almost none of that now, instead focusing more on fruits and vegetables, and sometimes chicken. "I didn't know that all of that was bad for us," said Serrano. "Now that I know where it comes from, I'm more cautious about what I'm eating—and what I'm drinking," holding up her water bottle.

The New York Restoration Project was also there, recruiting volunteers for any of the group's 14 community gardens in the Bronx (they have 55 around the city). The interest seemed to be coming from people who have no experience gardening, but are drawn to the benefit of taking produce home.

The potential for change is what seems to motivate the growing contingent of people working to green the South Bronx. "There's a lot of work left," said Liebowitz, "but it's certainly an improvement from where we were five years ago."