Where You At?

Ayanfe Jamison’s current role is the Garden Manager at Growing Hope in Ypsilanti, Michigan, but her roots in agroecology, permaculture, and food sovereignty are far deeper than her current role. She grew up in a very intergenerational environment in East Tennessee, watching her older relatives work the earth, engaging in subsistence farming and traditional skills such as making pickles and homemade wine. However, her mother wanted her to pursue more “professional” skills and “move up” through education, so these ancestral skills were not passed on to Ayanfe. Since then, she has spent the past 30 years seeking out knowledge and understanding of the practices she grew up surrounded by.

As part of her lifelong education process, Ayanfe spent an “eco urban year” as an honors student at Miami Dade College, where her cohort lived together, made meals together, and maintained a garden together. Each Tuesday, one person was responsible for preparing a vegan meal, and their “class” was their dinner time. They read texts on deep ecology from writers such as Wendell Berry. As much as Ayanfe enjoyed the subject, she was deeply bothered by the fact that the “world literature” collection didn’t include any Black authors. She pushed back, and new material was introduced.

To this day, she treasures her heavily-annotated copy of Literature and the Environment: A Reader on Nature and Culture. Edited by Lorraine Anderson, Scott Slovic, and John P. O’Grady, this was Ayanfe’s first real exposure to ecological literature written from perspectives that resonated with her. One of her favorite pieces in the collection is “Touching the Earth,” by bell hooks. Another favorite is “Where You At? A Bioregional Quiz,” which aims to raise people’s awareness of how much they really know, or don’t know, about the place they call home. Through questions such as “Trace the water you drink from precipitation to tap” and “How long is the growing season where you live?” quiz-takers are scored on a scale from “You have your head up your ass” to “You not only know where you’re at, you know where it’s at.”

This kind of straight-speaking evaluation is typical of Ayanfe. One of her continuous sources of frustration is that almost all of the “rewilding” she has engaged in as an adult has been dependent on learning skills from White folks–skills which she recognizes as part of her heritage, such as cob construction (building with mud and straw) and permaculture. When she first started rewilding, her friends were all “earthy crunchy white kids that lived teepees, school buses, and yurts” and who didn’t need to make money to sustain themselves. Ayanfe became focused on finding a way to reintroduce rewilding practices to people of color in ways that were realistic and acknowledged and respected the origins of these practices.

One of the ways Ayanfe passes on this knowledge is through running the Home Vegetable Garden program at Growing Hope. The program is focused on working-class folks in Ypsilanti and provides the materials and knowledge needed to have a robust home vegetable garden. Ayanfe and her interns (when she has them) install raised beds at people’s homes, and by the time they leave, they have a garden assembled, filled with soil, and with starter plants. Participants also receive seed packets and additional plant starts throughout the year. People who qualify for food assistance programs are prioritized, but other factors that are considered for program selection are whether there are seniors or children in the household, whether anyone in the household has a disability, the income scale of the household, and the racial demographics of the household. Participants in the program are able to grow whatever they would like to, and do whatever they want with it, whether that’s personal consumption, selling, or giving away the produce to the community, or feeding it to pets. This freedom is essential to the program's role in promoting food sovereignty.

To Ayanfe, food sovereignty means that food is a human right that cannot be bestowed or revoked. This includes the right not just to have access to food, but access and agency over your personal food system. Food assistance programs such as SNAP and WIC often do not provide options for people with different dietary restrictions, and when she was receiving benefits as a vegan, she felt like she had no agency over her food choices. Food sovereignty isn’t about just having access to whatever food the government determines you deserve, but about having the freedom to decide what kinds of food are appropriate or not appropriate for you and your household, freedom to use food as medicine, and the freedom, knowledge, and capacity to grow your own food and medicine. For Ayanfe, the Home Vegetable Garden program is an important route to providing community members with this kind of no-strings-attached sovereignty.

This post is part of a series by Emma Rose Hardy, a PhD Candidate at the University of Michigan and the Rackham Local Food Systems Intern at Growing Hope. The series aims to highlight the essential role that SNAP and other food assistance programs play in the Washtenaw County local food system.

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Mother Earth is Asking Us to be Present

By Julius Buzzard • April 1, 2026

Beloved community, April arrives the way it always does in Michigan; tentatively at first, then all at once. One morning, the ground is still stubborn and cold, and the next, something is pushing through. We call it Earth Month, but Mother Earth does not need a month. Mother Earth is always working. What Earth Month does, at its best, is return us to attention; to the slow, faithful labor happening beneath our feet, whether we notice or not. This month, I want to talk about that labor. Not just the labor of growing food, but the labor of staying whole while doing this work. The labor of belonging to one another. The labor of grief. Food sovereignty has never been only about food. It has always been about the conditions under which people live; who controls the land, who decides what is grown and for whom, whose hands are trusted to tend it, and whose labor is rendered invisible in the process. When we plant together, across our differences, we practice a different way of being in relationship with the earth and with each other. We are rehearsing the world we are trying to build. This is food sovereignty at its fullest: not a policy framework alone, but a practice of restoration. Of the land, yes. But also of people. Of community. Of self. Earth Month, then, is not just a celebration of the natural world. It is an invitation to remember that we are part of it; that the health of our soil and the health of our souls are not separate questions. This spring, I am carrying something heavier than usual. And I suspect many of you are too. Our community lost Melvin Parson. And that loss has settled into me like the coming of spring here in Michigan: quietly, then suddenly, everywhere. Melvin was a farmer, a visionary, and a neighbor. Through We The People Opportunity Farm, he built real pathways of belonging and dignity. He understood that food sovereignty is not only about growing food; it is about restoring people to possibility. Melvin planted seeds that will outlive all of us. In the soil and in the lives he helped rebuild. Rest in power, Melvin. We will keep tending what you planted. But grief does not arrive alone. And I think we need to name that. Something has been accumulating in many of us. The anxiety of not knowing whether your rent will hold, whether the program keeping your mother's medication affordable will survive the next budget cycle, whether the news tomorrow brings another cut, another threat, another loss. The weight of watching war unfold on a screen while packing your child's lunch. The low hum of uncertainty has grown so constant that many of us have stopped recognizing it as something being done to us. Mental health in our communities is rarely one dramatic moment. It is the slow erosion of the conditions that makes life feel possible. And right now, those conditions are under pressure from every direction. We are not imagining it. It is real. And it deserves to be named. I do not want to move past this moment too quickly, because I think it is asking something of us. Those of us who work in food systems, in community organizing, in the daily labor of trying to repair what has been broken, we carry a particular weight. The need is constant. The resources are not. The work is relational, which means every loss is personal. Every family facing hunger has a name. Every policy that fails our community lands in someone's body. We are not separate from the communities we serve. We are one of them. And that means the strains of this moment: economic precarity, political hostility, grief, isolation, and the relentless demand to do more with less all live within us. I have been thinking about what it means to tend ourselves the way Mother Earth tends herself. To acknowledge that fallow seasons are not failures. That rest is not retreat. That asking for help is not a weakness, but the most honest form of community care. Mother Earth is not asking us to be strong; she’s asking us to be present. This April, I am inviting Growing Hope's community into that same practice. Tend your plot, yes, but also tend your people. Check on your neighbors. Come to the farm not just to grow food, but to be held by the community. Let the soil remind you that transformation is slow, and real, and worth it. We are in this together. And together is the only way through. In solidarity, Julius P.S. If this month is weighing on you, you don't have to carry it alone. The NAMI HelpLine offers free, confidential one-on-one support, mental health information, and resources — available Monday through Friday, 10am–10pm ET. Call 1-800-950-NAMI (6264) or text NAMI to 62640. And if you need a reason to get outside and be with people, join us on April 11, 10am–1pm for our Spring Seedling Distribution.

Downtown Ypsi Deserves This

By Julius Buzzard • March 27, 2026

Beloved community, Last season, organizers of all sizes hosted 168 events at the Ypsilanti Farmers MarketPlace, from mutual aid distributions and cultural gatherings to health outreach and food policy conversations. These moments reflect how we steward shared resources to maximize good and meet multiple community needs at once. At the heart of it all is the Ypsilanti Farmers Market itself. If you’ve spent any time at the market, you know that it’s never just been a place to shop. It’s a place to linger. To listen. To organize. To feed one another, body and spirit. Together, we are building a food ecosystem where everyone has access to fresh produce and where advocacy, mutual aid, and belonging intersect. That was especially clear this year when our community faced a sudden gap in food access. When early federal funding shifts threatened nutrition dollars, our community didn’t wait. Together, we rapidly designed and launched the Ypsi SNAP Gap Program, a locally powered response that ensured hundreds of local families could continue to access food. As we move through spring, your support sustains this work; keeping vendor fees low, strengthening food access programs, and maintaining the MarketPlace as a space for belonging. Every gift sustains a place to live, organize, and nourish one another. With deep gratitude, Julius Buzzard Executive Director P.S. Your early spring support ensures we’re ready to respond when our community needs it most.

Nutrition and the Right to Thrive

By Julius Buzzard • February 26, 2026

Beloved community, March is National Nutrition Month, and across the country, we’re told to read labels more closely, count nutrients more carefully, and “eat real foods.” But nutrition is not a trend cycle; it is a question of power. I invite you to join me in curiosity and ask: Who has access to what’s being recommended? Who can afford the “real” food being celebrated? Who grows it, and who gets paid? Are we treating illness, or are we transforming the conditions that produce it? Health outcomes matter, but health equity goes further. Health equity asks why certain neighborhoods have higher rates of diabetes in the first place. It asks why fresh food feels exceptional in some zip codes and ordinary in others. It asks why farmers struggle to survive while healthcare systems expand. If we do not address land access, procurement policy, and economic extraction, then “eat real” risks becoming a quiet moral judgment instead of a structural commitment. Michigan once modeled real structural commitment through 10 Cents a Meal for Michigan's Kids & Farms ; matching school dollars to buy Michigan-grown produce and making local food standard in cafeterias. It strengthened children’s health, stabilized farmers, and shifted institutional purchasing habits. This year, the program was not funded. And as a result, students miss the chance to build lifelong food memories rooted close to home. And still, we are not retreating. Together, we are building a foundation of generational health. Generational health is the long game. It is the work of ensuring that today’s third grader doesn’t just eat a fresh apple; but grows up expecting apples from Michigan orchards in their cafeteria. It is ensuring that a teen doesn’t just volunteer at the market; but understands zoning laws, farm bills, and supply chains well enough to challenge them. This is the foundation of our theory of change. We build generational health by shaping habits early and reinforcing them often; through initiatives like our Teen Leadership Program, where young people gain the skills and critical lens to navigate and influence the food system; through field trips to our urban farm and incubator kitchen, where learning is rooted in soil; through Farm to School programming that normalizes local procurement; and through Power of Produce (POP) Club, where children practice agency by choosing fresh food for themselves. This is how we shift from reactive nutrition work to regenerative nutrition culture. We do this by pairing conversations about Food as Medicine, dietary guidelines, and eating real foods, with: An insistence that farmers are part of the prescription. Guidelines that align with affordability and access. Understanding that real foods need to be reachable, culturally meaningful, and dignified. Nutrition is not simply about what’s on a plate. It is about who has the right to thrive. This National Nutrition Month, I invite you to see nutrition not as an individual burden, but as a collective project that treats fresh food not as charity, but as infrastructure. We are cultivating a community where children expect fresh produce, where farmers are stable and respected, and where health is inherited as legacy. That is generational health. And that is the future we are growing together. In solidarity, Julius P.S. Check out the FoodCorps Policy Action Map or sign up for our Farm to School Newsletter if you’re interested in building generational health.

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