Local food activist Duron Chavis (Photo by Ash Daniel)
When food justice advocate Duron Chavis welcomes a new class for his four-week-long farming boot camp, he asks each participant to complete a manifestation form — a list of goals and dreams for their future garden or agricultural project.
“It’s been beautiful; there’s no shortage of folks with a vision who want to see things happen in their community and connect back with the land and their food,” Chavis says.
The main source of educational outreach for Chavis’ Resiliency Garden Initiative, these quarterly farming boot camps focus on exploring the basics of urban gardening, from seeds and treating soil to composting and identifying native plants. The hybrid program combines in-class lessons and discussions with hands-on practice in the field.
With only a dozen slots or fewer per semester, it is easy for the experience to become intimate, as individuals from all walks of life dig their hands into the earth.
“In the class people really build relationships,” Chavis says, “people that probably wouldn't cross paths or connect for any other reason.”
One recent attendee is 27-year-old Syd Collier, a VCU graduate and founder of Roots Tea Blends. Looking to inspire mindfulness through her products and connect customers with the plants and herbs her teas are made from, she was drawn to the class.
“It feels like a different way to reconnect with the earth,” Collier says, “and what Duron is doing is making it feel more accessible by breaking it down into steps.
“I feel like that's really important for everyone,” she continues, “and also feel like it’s really, really important, especially for Black folks, because our history with land is pretty traumatic, … to be in a space where there is opportunity to heal that connection with the land and reclaim power and autonomy over your own food.”
Working with youth-focused organizations including Girls for a Change and Open Space Education, Collier’s goal is to take the lessons she’s learned and plant the seeds of knowledge with young people in the community.
In the past year, Chavis has turned Happily Natural Day, a multiday festival dedicated to holistic health and social change, into a nonprofit; partnered with Trinity Family Life Center to install greenhouses and raised garden beds on their property; signed a 10-year lease for 10 acres of land at Ginter Park Presbyterian Church for a forthcoming youth-operated urban farm; planted more than 100 trees and fruit plants at McDonough Community Garden; installed solar panels; built chicken coops; and connected with local artist Hamilton Glass, who plans to paint a mural on shipping containers used for farming at Sankofa Community Orchard.
On the board of the Maggie Walker Community Land Trust, Chavis also says there are plans in motion to build a multiacre “agrihood” in Chesterfield, where neighborhood housing and farming come together.
“That farm will basically self-produce for the people that live in that neighborhood,” he explains.
The forward momentum is all part of his vision to instill in individuals, especially those in Black and brown communities, the importance of being connected with a localized food system and the potential for directly weaving themselves into it.
“Black farmers are aging out, and there’s a push for a new generation of growers that can take this work moving forward,” Chavis says. "Not everybody is going to be a farmer, but everybody eats. There’s a gradient for people to land on in terms of participating in this stuff, and my hope is our work can show people that everybody has a role to play in building a more resilient food system.”
