Duron Chavis plants food justice seeds one garden at a time

For Duron Chavis, the founder and executive director at The
Happily Natural Day, food is much more than breakfast, lunch, and
dinner.


"I think food, especially the act of growing food, is one of the
most practical, accessible tools of resistance that communities
can utilize to take their power back," Chavis told Eat It,
Virginia! podcast hosts Scott Wise and Robey Martin. "When I say
take your power back, I mean, health-wise, we live in communities
that don't have access to grocery stores or healthy food in
general. The act of you growing your own food is you practicing
agency and determining for yourself what your input is going to
be. That's just the individual level, right? But on a communal
level, the act of growing food is and builds community."


Through his food justice community activism and non-profit work,
Chavis is training volunteers to plant gardens in communities
where fresh food is needed the most.


"The Resiliency Garden Project is designed to help increase
people's access to healthy food. Through COVID, lots of folks
lost their jobs are lost people were laid off. So we said, one of
the things that is going to be challenging is if people have less
money, then that means that they have less food. And once COVID
started hitting, really started seeing shortages of food and
different types of products inside of the grocery store. So I
tried to figure out how we can help people have more immediate
access to food in their homes, by the virtue of them growing
their own food," he said. "So if you're food insecure, you can
apply for a raised bed and go on our website, click the link, put
in your name, address, phone number, and you'll be put into a
queue. A volunteer, once your materials are ready, they'll
contact you and come out and build you a raised bed. Six by four
size, 12-inches high, it's about a cubic yard with the soil. Then
volunteers will also bring you some seedlings to help you get
your raise pit started. So it's really simple. It's nothing
complicated at all. It's really our way of trying to help people
connect to where their food comes from, as well as help mitigate
people's lack of food access."


To learn more about Chavis' work and impact in the community,
download Eat It, Virginia!


Links mentioned in the podcast:


Raising Funds For Food Justice in Richmond, Virginia


The Happily Natural Day


RVA Land Justice Fund


Fat Kid Sandwiches


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