Addressing Food Deserts in South Dallas

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There are some people that make their
work just another thing they have to do,

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and there are those that make their
work something that they want to do.

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Welcome to Working on Purpose with your
host Elise Cortes. In our program,

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we provide guidance and inspiration from those
people who have found deeper meaning and

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personal connection to their work life.
It's beyond nine to five. It's working

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on purpose. Now Here is your
host, Elise Cortes. Welcome back to

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Working on Purpose. Thanks for tuning
in again this week. I'm your host,

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Elise Cortes, joining you from Dallas, Texas, which is home base

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for me. This program is all
about helping people more meaningfully and productively connect

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with their work and equipping organizations to
do the same for their employees. So

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I bring on guests to a particular
perspective or experience that I think expands the

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conversation about meaningful or productive work,
and I often draw on the meeting in

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work research I've been conducting over the
last fifteen years, as well as my

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own experience consulting, including the work
that I do at in Senium, which

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is a global management consulting firm.
I'll get to my program and guest in

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just a moment, but first at
big thank you and shout out to my

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media partner and sponsor, jobbing dot
Com. Jobing dot com is the leading

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locally focused job board in the nation
and they are dedicated to helping employers find

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quality talent in their own backyard while
giving job seekers control over their search so

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they can find work close to home. Great partnership. Thank you jobbing dot

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Com. Last week, if you
miss the show, you can always catch

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the podcast. We were live on
air with Kirk Bowman, who is the

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founder of Art of Value, a
value pricing consultancy here in Dallas, Texas,

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and a practicing fellow at the Verisage
Institute. We talked about the movement

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Kirk and others are behind to get
away from charging by the hour for a

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project in professional services and instead charging
for the value received by the client.

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Kirk talked about how value price consulting
actually allows service provider to stay true to

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his or her why or purpose and
how the client ultimately wins by getting the

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best focus of the service provider.
U this week is doctor Owen Lynch,

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who is an associate professor in the
Medal School of the Arts at Southern Methodist

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University and the director of the Organizational
Communications Track within the Corporate Communications and Public

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Affairs Department. Outside of the Communications
Department, he holds the positions of Senior

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Research Fellow and Director of Community Research
and Engagement for the Hunt Institute of Engineering

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and Humanity within the Lyle School of
Engineering at SMU. He also serves as

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the director of Get Healthy Dallas,
a nonprofit organization he helped form that is

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dedicated to addressing the lack of healthy
food options, adequate education, and economic

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development opportunities in Dallas, with special
focus on the South Dallas and the Fair

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Park area. Doctor Lynch is a
friend of mine and a co author in

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tandem with our meeting and work research. He joined us today right here from

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my office studio. Doctor Owen Lynch, Welcome to Working on Purpose. Thank

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you're having me. It's great to
have you back. We've done this a

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couple of times before on various various
topics. But there's a ton of want

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to extract from you. You are
a man who wears many, many hats,

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So let's just start first if we
can, by the work that you're

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doing at Get Healthy Dallas. So
first help us understand how is the organization

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formed who was involved? Okay,
so Get Healthy Dallas is a nonprofit and

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it was actually formed by two of
students at SMU who are PhD students,

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and they were doing research in this
new thing that was being discovered called food

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deserts. And this was quite a
while ago, obviously, about nine years

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ago, and the two doctoral students
in the Divinity School and they were studying

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food deserts and food equity and why
do some regions have lack of access to

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health fresh food. So they came
to me as a qualitative researcher and they

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asked me, if they were interested
in doing a study, how could they

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best understand what a food desert is
as it was a new concept, and

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how people who live in the food
desert how they experiencing it. And that's

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I think a really important question that
Robert Foster and Stacey Scherons first asked me.

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What a food does. It is
is a geographical economic indicator. In

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other words, it says people living
in one square mile in a densely popular

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urban population who don't have access to
health fresh food. So many people may

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not realize this, but the southern
sector of Dallas, for example, from

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thirty down is about as large as
the city of Atlanta, and it only

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has a couple of grocery stores in
the entire region. So two to three

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out of every five children are food
and secure in South Dallas, and there's

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only one grocery store in all South
Dallas Fair Park that serves adequate, fresh,

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healthy vegetables, and even then the
price is a little higher. So

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when you have a what a bed
would call an isolated population that doesn't have

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access to fresh, healthy food within
and then you have lack of transportation within

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that same area, what you have
is generations of people now who've grown up,

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and there may be some fast food
restaurant chains a couple, but there's

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not very many options for people to
eat healthy. There's not many options for

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people to buy or even develop food
habits around healthy food. And when they

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buy groceries, it's typically a three
hour round trip on public transport if they

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don't have a private personal car,
and they can only do that infrequently.

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And so you don't buy fresh food
because it goes bad. And if you're

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working, like most of these families
are working exorbitant hours. So my students

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wanted to understand this phenomenon, and
so we came up with the idea of

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going to a local high school and
I'm sorry, going to a local high

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school and equipping the high school students, the seniors there they call the Turner

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twelve at Lincoln High School in South
Dallas with cameras and we asked them the

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simple question, take a picture and
tell us what is healthy to you and

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it could be. And the students
went off and took pictures and it's called

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photo voice ethnography. They took pictures
of their of their local environment, and

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then they coded those pictures on either
healthy or unhealthy. And then they asked

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their piers and they did folk groups
with their peers and how they sold the

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pictures, and a pattern emerged that
was quite odd. We think of food

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deserts as something that we can map, and the USDA first notices that they've

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mapped the entire United States. If
you go on the USDA's website, type

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in food desert, type in your
zip code, you can see how your

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zip code for examples classified. But
what's really important is recognize is that,

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yes, we can classify what a
food as it is, but people live

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in a food desert and to them, it's a very different experience. It's

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actually a lived the experience. It's
an individual, household level challenge. It's

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not just something that we map in
an abstract or macro economic term. So

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we wanted to capture that a little
bit. And what we found was the

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students looked at something like the Donald's, which for myself, someone who has

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access to lots of fresh, healthy
food in my community and someone who's who

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used to be a chef so used
to eating and healthy, fresh food from

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Europe. The students classify that as
healthy and unhealthy. And when they said,

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you only have five dollars and that's
what you have to stretch to eat

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that for that day, you actually
can get a lot of food for that

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five dollars in McDonald's. And so
they equated being full, not feeling hungry

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as healthy, which is totally understandable
from those kids' perspective, especially when the

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school sessions weren't in. And so
we had students also say, you know,

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my neighborhood is it's the trash,
and it's the quality of the water

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spills off, and the fact that
there's other issues in their community that they

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weren't that they felt were bringing their
neighborhood down. They declimbed. They were

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saying, I'm less worried about brocoli
when I saw I've seen a dead perperson

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on my way to school. One
student said, So it's understandable. But

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at the same time, they wanted
the option to understand where vegetables were.

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They recognized they didn't know how to
prepare many the vegetable foods, and that's

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played out in lots of literature and
research, and so they came up with

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the solution, which was they wanted
something they could have pride in for that

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community. They wanted something that was
giving back to their community. They wanted

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to learn how to do something for
jobs because they felt that the lack of

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ability to have access to healthy and
equitable jobs was just as important to them

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as learning about fruits and vegetables.
So what the students knew implicitly, which

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is something that is difficult for many
people to understand, that food desert is

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not just about hate given vegetables.
Then it's not a food desert. A

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food desert is a health desert.
It's an infrastructure desert. It's a job

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desert, it's a knowledge desert.
It's for practices and food ways that have

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happened for a long period of time
that have developed in the communities that haven't

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had access to those vegetables. So
it's lots of things. It's systemic.

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They saw it, and so Get
Healthy Dallas was created at first to address

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on a systemic level, working with
the schools on the food desert issue,

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and then it's kind of transformed a
little bit since then and had lots of

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iterations, but now it's kind of
the practical arm if you want to do,

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or the applied arm of my research
side, which is at the Hun

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Institute. So I research food desits, I work with partners all over the

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foodts landscape, and I work in
concentrated urban poverty. But if I have

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a project that I think is particularly
important, I'll use the structure of GHD

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to to enact that project. And
so in some ways, what we're doing

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at the Hunt Institute is we're looking
at food systems and how that all works,

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and we're looking at how do all
these pieces fit together, and why

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isn't there a healthy food system in
South Dallas because it's a market failure.

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How can we address that? What
are the barriers, what are the pieces

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that are missing, how do we
make sure these pieces connect better? And

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then if there's a piece that's not
there that I feel it is necessary to

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create a healthier food system emerging,
then I'll actually try and start raise funds,

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find the talent, leverage assets to
enact that solution. So that's kind

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of what I'm doing now. It's
called asset based community development. Okay,

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there's a lot I could say in
response to that, and beautiful and let

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me just call it my listeners,
and we do happen to enjoy listeners all

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over the globe, which is a
wonderful thing. And I appreciate very much

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that we're one big globe talking about
this particular issue. Part of the reason

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I wanted to have you on the
show, as you know, is that

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you certainly are a man working on
purpose, and you do it on many

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different fronts. And I appreciate too
that what you're doing in this particular initiative

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is addressing on a systemic level a
variety of things that are problematic in these

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communities. It's really really impressive.
I understand too that part of what you're

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doing is you've been able to find
ways to leverage other communities and organizations to

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help you, and one of them
is restorative farms. So would just say

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more about who's restorative farms and how
are they helping. So restorative Farms actually

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isn't a who, it's more of
a watch. Okay. So what we

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realized was in many cities they have, for example, funds that will help

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create agricultural hubs or growth for food
system growth. And let me step back

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a little bit and talk about Dallas, Texas landscape and why Restorative Forms was

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formed. So Dallas is really a
tale of two cities. You have a

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city that's divided by the highway thirty
half of the land masses below thirty and

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half of the land messes above it. Ninety percent of the jobs some estimate

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even higher actually are above thirty.
Seven hundred thousand people about third to forty

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percent of the population are below thirty. Most of the tax generation obviously happens

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where the higher property and jobs are
a lot of the services unfortunately needed in

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a area of poverty. So you
have one of the highest growing cities in

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American sort of economic development. You
have more millionaires created in Dallas and any

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in the city United States. We've
been in the Forbes Top ten list for

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fastest growing cities for the last ten
years. So we are part of the

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Texas Miracle, they call it.
Simultaneously, though we've had a stagnant pop

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that was recognized by the FED in
two thousand and four. They said that

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if the isolated poverty in Dallas,
Texas isn't addressed, they won't enjoy the

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prosperity the rest of the region will
have because there's no inroad for those communities

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to connect to this job training,
job sourcing growth. And so we have

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I live and you live less than
a mile away from South Dallas, and

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we live in a neighborhood that's got
good schools, excellent water, good infrastructure,

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nice stores, access through the whole
city, and yet a mile from

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us our houses. Literally, if
you go down Lindsay Avenue, for example,

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you go from a million and a
half White Rock Lake, a million

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in the c streets to average now
to then you go into the then you

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go into Heights and then which are
about six hundred and seventy seven hundred thousand

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and thirty. Then you get into
lots of seventy thousand. Jubilee Park,

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which has done amazing work with their
community, and that's a model people should

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look at. And then you move
this little south burth in South East Pair

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Park and you're looking at houses with
the lot values are about five thousand dollars.

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Wow, And so you had one
third of those lots are empty and

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you have lots of the houses boarded
up. And so we go in that

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one road. You see, we
go from some of the wealthiest town in

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America and best access with unemployment rate
of three to four percent, to a

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part of town that has twenty eight
percent unemployment. And that's people who are

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actively looking for work in South Allast, Fair Park, in South Thouast in

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general. So that's part of the
that's part of the issue. So in

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that strange thing when we look at
what's called asset based development, I'm not

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answering your question. I'll get to
it. Sorry, it's okay. I

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know you have a lot to talk
about. Keep going. So in that

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part of town, then we have
a lot of assets though, right we

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have land, we have people who
are actively looking for work work, we

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have people and growing vegetables is a
labor intensive, hands on process, and

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we have communities. So actually,
a really interested in local entrepreneurialism and helping

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each other and working with each other. In fact, if you poll,

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and we do lots of household surveys, they're much more connected to their neighbors

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and working with their neighbors and leveraging
their strengths and personal entrepreneurial habits to make

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their community more sustainable and make their
own lives. They're focused and so there's

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lots of these. There's real interests
in being able to have this entrepreneurial spirit

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there, but there's lack of resources. People don't know what to do in

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terms of what to grow, what
types of soil mixes that happen. Obviously,

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growing in Texas because of climate change
is really challenging. So you have

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this strange part of town that's been
neglected. We have lots of land masks,

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but we live in one of the
most unresilient cities in America. That

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we are. Foods brought in from
oign countries, from Mexico, primarily our

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fresh vegetables. It's actually warehouses South
Dallas and then brought into North Dallas into

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our grocery stores. The food If
that system lock closes up for some reason,

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let's say, for example, somebody
puts up a wall and charges higher

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texts, the price of vegetables will
go dramatically up, which means people become

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much more judicious in the amount they
buy the amount of leftover, and that

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system will go down. And that's
what's currently used to distribute to the food

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banks, to other food programs.
So it's a less stable system than we

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really hope, and it's really going
to hold Dallas back from fully developing over

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time. So how can we create
more resilient neighborhoods? And one of those

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ways is creating what we call an
agra hub or a food system. And

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that's when every aspect of the food
chain is actually located and done locally,

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which makes a city much more resilient
obviously, and it creates the nice thing

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of organic or healthy, fresh available
food, and it creates bi proximity,

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healthier food habits. Especially young children. If they see things growing and they

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watch things growing come a habit,
they much more likely to eat it.

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And there's lots of studies that show
that, and then it has natural health

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implications. So a booth hub a
food system is simple says that all of

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the food system, in terms of
it goes from pre production to food production,

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which is growing, to harvesting,
to packaging, to aggregating, to

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distribution to retail to selling, and
then the consumption and then the waste of

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that food goes back into creating soil. That circle every aspect of that as

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a job, or lots of jobs. In the connecting to each one of

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those stages is transportation, and it's
highly costly and it's high labor intensive.

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But there are ways to do that
more efficiently if everyone works together, but

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it requires a large amount of production
aggregation for that to happen, and it

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requires systematic coordination. Otherwise, growing
in your backyard is you'll never make money

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usually unless you unders you're really good
at growing something that has high cash value.

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Growing in your backyard is really difficult
to make ends meet, even though

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it's necessary for your neighborhood. So
there isn't the price point available to provide

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the thing that's needed in that community
most and the only way we can do

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that is by creating a system that
starts to work and network with each other

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to reduce their cost points and also
dramatically increase collective productivity, so we can

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start aggregating and having the local distribution
system. That's kind of technical stuff.

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I'm sorry, that's fantastic. So
Restorative Farms Restorative Farm in about thirty seconds

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00:17:37.880 --> 00:17:42.680
if you can. So Restorative Farms
is an umbrella okay, company tar that's

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00:17:42.720 --> 00:17:47.480
owned by nobody, but like I
fit my project and call it underneath that

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because I'm working within the system.
So it's actually anybody who's in that system

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who has a farm can connect through
it. So it becomes an umbrella term

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to foster that connections. Okay,
and it's a brainchild of many people.

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So okay, fantastic. As you
can tell listeners, the man has a

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ton to share. You can see
why I want to have him on the

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show. It's time for our first
break. I'm Alice Cortez, your host.

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We've been on the air with doctor
Owen Lynch, who is an associate

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professor in the Medical School of Arts
at Southern Methodist University. He also serves

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as the director of Get Healthy Dallas, a nonprofit organization he helped form that

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is dedicated to addressing the lack of
healthy food options, adequate education, and

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economic development opportunities in Dallas, with
special focus on the South Dallas and Fair

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Park area. He joined us today
right here with me in my Dallas office

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studio. We've been talking a bit
about his interests and why this is an

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00:18:33.160 --> 00:18:37.079
issue and why he cares so much
to help address it. Stay with us,

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00:18:37.160 --> 00:19:07.519
we'll be right back. Friend us
on Facebook to keep up with what's

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00:19:07.519 --> 00:19:14.759
empowering the world. Voice America Empowerment. Alice Cortes is a speaker and engagement

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and development catalyst. She designs and
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and can bring her expertise to your
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within your workforce that will increase employee
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more or to invite Elise to speak
to your organization, please visit her at

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www dot Elisecortes dot com. She
would welcome the opportunity to help get your

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Motivate, change, succeed, Voice
America Empowerment dot com. This is

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00:20:27.160 --> 00:20:32.920
Working on Purpose with Elise Cortes.
To reach our program today, please call

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in to one triple eight three four
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an email to elease A l Se
at Elisecortes dot com. Now back to

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00:20:48.519 --> 00:20:55.119
Working on Purpose. Thanks for staying
with us, and welcome back to Working

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00:20:55.200 --> 00:20:57.160
on Purpose if you're just joining us. My guest is doctor Owen Lynch,

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who's an associal professor in the Metalso
School of Arts at the Southern Methods University

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here in Dallas. Outside of the
Communications Department, he holds the positions of

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Senior Research Fellow and Director of Community
Research and Engagement for the Hunt Institute and

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00:21:08.960 --> 00:21:14.759
Engineering and Humanity within the Lyle School
of Engineering at SMU. He also serves

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as the director of Get Healthy Dallas, which is a nonprofit organization he helped

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form that is dedicated to addressing the
lack of healthy food options, adequate education

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00:21:22.920 --> 00:21:26.839
and economic development opportunities in Dallas,
with special focus on the South Dallas and

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00:21:26.839 --> 00:21:30.039
the Fair Park area. I'm your
host, Elisee Cortes Okayo, and so

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00:21:30.200 --> 00:21:33.720
before the break, you gave us
a plethora of information to help us really

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00:21:33.839 --> 00:21:38.000
understand and presence the problem you're trying
to address. And it's incredibly impressive the

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00:21:38.000 --> 00:21:41.880
work that you and your team are
doing. And I know that you fold

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in an awful lot of organizations to
try to leverage their expertise. I don't

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00:21:44.880 --> 00:21:47.960
even know how you manage all that. But one of the things that I

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want to make sure that we talk
about, because it's something that's just happened

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here in Dallas, is the seedling
farm opened up November. Tell us about

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00:21:55.599 --> 00:21:59.279
the seedling farm. So the saving
farm is what I call it input solution.

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So the problem was is we have
lots of people doing amazing work who

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are growing locally to feed their own
communities. Some of them in churches,

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00:22:08.200 --> 00:22:11.200
some of them in homeless shelters,
some of them in schools, and some

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of them are standalone, small little
farms that are just trying to produce to

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make the neighborhood better. But one
of the problems with barriers that many of

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00:22:18.160 --> 00:22:22.319
them faced is what do I grow, when do I grow it? And

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00:22:22.359 --> 00:22:26.839
how do I get access to healthy
small plants because most of the most vulnerable

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00:22:26.839 --> 00:22:30.000
time for a plant is from ceiling
to the actual they call a plug or

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00:22:30.039 --> 00:22:33.799
a a seed to a plug,
and that's when you really and you can

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00:22:33.839 --> 00:22:37.480
buy them from home depot, for
example, as a three inch plant,

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but they may not be designed for
this region. They may have been on

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a truck for two weeks in over
water, they may have diseases from other

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plants they've been around, and they, as you notice when many of us

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are plants, it outside from nothing
wrong with those, but they many times

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can die. And if you have
limited resources and you want you want to

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make sure that you're really feeding your
community. Well, what I realized was

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people needed access to seas and seedlings. They needed access to an expert so

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that they could coordinate the right plant
for their garden and their community. So

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where do you put that because it
wasn't currently in the system, So everyone

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needs this. It's a barrier or
will help lots of people, even if

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they want to start from their own
little pot guard in their backyard, so

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in a couple of pots on their
back porch. So I was lucky enough.

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I was working at the MLK Center, working with a group called Miles

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of Freedom and working with the MLK
Center the City Hall in Dallas, City

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of Dallas, and they had a
small garden called Freedom Garden that was started

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by the community, but like many
community gardens, it was very difficult to

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maintain without an expert there or someone
helping or knowing what to do. And

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they also met a man named Tyrone
Day, and Tyrone Day has now become

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a really good friend of mine and
also a partner in the Ceiling Farm.

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He was an exonerated prisoner, so
he did twenty five years in prison for

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a crime and didn't commit. Now, most people would be furious or and

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I guess he was tempered through that
period to realize he came out he wanted

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to help the community where he was
from and helped people have better choices.

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And he was in prison, he
managed prison greenhouse systems for twenty years.

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In fact lived in the prisons greenhouse. And I work with Texan Agri Life.

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They're part of my partners as well
and Big Tech Surban Farms, and

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those expert farmers met Tyrone, and
both of them turned to me and said,

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this guy probably knows more than we
do because of his experience, and

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he was cutting loans at the time
and managing the loans service care service.

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So Tyrone and I realized that here
was a resource for the communities from the

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community. He was working out of
the community center that is the center of

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South Dalas Fare Park community that's on
city land, so successible. It's a

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nice and it's really doing. Pam
Jones, who is the director there,

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is doing amazing work of bringing the
center back. So I put a seedling

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farm there, which is just a
small greenhouse that pumps out seasonally appropriate seedlings

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for the community. Right, we
were already put out six thousand into the

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community, so let me say that
number again. We put six thousand small

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plants out into community farms in South
Dallas Bear Park that are turning into vegetable

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producing plants to feed their community.
We put them out in bonds on farms.

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We put them out to our partners
at Jubilee, We put them out

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with our partners in Sunny South.
We put them out of our partners in

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many other gardens at Saint Philip's School
and what that was to enable people do.

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Then anyone can go. He's opened
usually every afternoon and during the week

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for students just to walk by,
and people just walk in. He talks

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to them about healthy eating, he
gives them a plant to go home to

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try to grow. So he's got
a real passion for it. But we're

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on target. We're going to produce
about twenty thousand plants that will go out

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into the community over the next year. And if you're a community member,

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we have that we can give you
plants to get you started for a very

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low price, much cheaper than you
can buy locally, so we can also

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reduce that price point down, provide
experts and also then make sure that you're

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getting a product that's going to dramatically
increase your chance to grow better. And

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that's really what we're trying to do, is we're trying to help the system

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and help the individual grow is do
what they want to do better. So

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that's one of the roles of Get
Healthy Dallas and the Hunt Institute primarily is

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to how can we look systemically where
the weakest link is or where the barrier,

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and how can we remove that to
enable others to alleviate themselves at a

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poverty So that's what the Ceiling Farm
is designed to do. And if you

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go online you know Owen Lynch Seedling
Farm, you'll see pictures from it.

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But it was a really amazing event
to happen and it's already having great impacts.

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So it's one of those projects that
until it was built, nobody really

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needed and realized how much we need
it. But it's quick adoption. You

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could already see how it's filling a
really valuable role in creating a local food

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system which is currently is totally underdeveloped
in Dallas. So I'm really proud of

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00:26:52.240 --> 00:26:56.720
that that local achievement and my partners
with tire On Day and to Vincent Martin

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have been able to do. And
we're working with the Dallas Seedling Library who

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00:27:00.839 --> 00:27:06.400
are actually sourcing our seeds and you
can go and go on their websites and

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see their great work. And we'll
work with many other people who are now

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linking using that as a as a
starting hub to teach, encourage and provide

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plants for people so they can grow
better for their communities. What I like

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about that, I want to chime
into that, and I hate to interrupt

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00:27:19.519 --> 00:27:22.160
you because there's so much I just
want to get out of you, But

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when I want to make sure that
I presence for our listeners. That I

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like about that because I am one
of those weirdos who loves vegetables. They're

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the first thing that I eat on
my plate, and I know that I'm

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00:27:30.799 --> 00:27:34.000
weird in that way for a lot
of people. What I really like about

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00:27:34.000 --> 00:27:37.799
the seedling program is that when people
bring home those seedlings and they then as

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00:27:37.799 --> 00:27:41.000
a family can watch that plant grow. As you say, they get connected

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00:27:41.039 --> 00:27:48.359
to how their food is actually grown. That creates a connection to healthy food

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00:27:48.400 --> 00:27:52.240
that people don't understand because what you
and I have talked about before is if

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what's available for groceries is your local
convenience store which has largely processed foods,

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00:27:57.240 --> 00:28:00.480
you'll never get access to and see
and appreciate the fact that your food actually

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00:28:00.480 --> 00:28:03.640
is a natural thing that grows from
the ground, doesn't come in a can

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or a package. I had a
student who a local high school student who

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was walking by because we're right next
to the high school, ran to a

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head start program right next to Old
People's Home at where we put that sere

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00:28:15.559 --> 00:28:18.359
and we have a pick and take, So we have gardens set outside where

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00:28:18.359 --> 00:28:22.960
we grow plants and the neighbors come
and just take one or two that they

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00:28:22.960 --> 00:28:25.680
want, and you know, it's
been it's been a real success. And

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00:28:26.000 --> 00:28:27.039
this girl walked by and I said, here, take a pepper. Try

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00:28:27.079 --> 00:28:30.720
it. It's not hot, it's
it's it's a sweet pepper. And she

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00:28:30.799 --> 00:28:33.200
said that's and she said, but
it's got dirt on it. I'm like,

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00:28:33.240 --> 00:28:33.839
yeah, it's got a dirt is
grab on the ground. Said your

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00:28:33.839 --> 00:28:37.640
wipe it all. But here's some
water. And she said, I've never

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00:28:37.680 --> 00:28:41.880
eaten and he said, plants come
from dirt and literally had no idea what

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00:28:42.079 --> 00:28:45.559
a fresh vegetable came from dirt.
And she tried it. She said it's

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00:28:45.559 --> 00:28:48.279
good, you know. So it
was one of those things that we take

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00:28:48.279 --> 00:28:52.799
it for granted. Sometimes you're right
when you're when you peel your when you

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00:28:52.839 --> 00:28:56.720
open your can, and that's how
you have food all the time. You

404
00:28:56.799 --> 00:28:59.400
sometimes miss those connections. So I
think you're yeah, I think you're spot

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00:28:59.400 --> 00:29:00.640
on. Yeah. I just want
to make sure that our listeners really are

406
00:29:00.640 --> 00:29:06.640
making these really these intricate connections,
because you're talking about things on such an

407
00:29:06.799 --> 00:29:10.680
intricate, systemic level. There's so
many inputs and outputs that you're talking about.

408
00:29:10.960 --> 00:29:11.960
And part of what I wanted to
make sure that they get is that

409
00:29:12.000 --> 00:29:15.519
we're at the end of the day, we're really starting to talk about how

410
00:29:15.519 --> 00:29:18.519
people actually feed themselves and what does
that mean, how do they choose the

411
00:29:18.519 --> 00:29:21.279
food that they eat, where does
it come from? And the fact that

412
00:29:21.279 --> 00:29:27.920
you're involved in such an endeavor that
really impacts social, economic, all really

413
00:29:27.960 --> 00:29:33.240
infamilial and cultural aspects, to me
is phenomenal. Yeah. No one should

414
00:29:33.240 --> 00:29:34.960
live in a food does it.
I mean nobody should, right, And

415
00:29:36.240 --> 00:29:38.599
you may not want to eat vegetables, especially if you're not growing up them,

416
00:29:38.640 --> 00:29:41.240
but you should only have the option
to have them if you wish to.

417
00:29:41.359 --> 00:29:45.039
That's right, that's right. I'm
with you on that. And to

418
00:29:45.079 --> 00:29:47.079
that end, one of the things
you and I talked about on the break

419
00:29:47.160 --> 00:29:51.319
is this whole need for agra hubs, and so I'm interested. That's a

420
00:29:51.319 --> 00:29:52.359
new term for me. So if
you can first tell us what is an

421
00:29:52.359 --> 00:29:57.519
agra hub and then what's what are
others doing across the world that's where they're

422
00:29:57.559 --> 00:30:02.880
doing that, Well, I'll give
you two quick examples because maybe that will

423
00:30:02.880 --> 00:30:07.880
explain it best. So what an
agrothub is, it's a concentrated farm that

424
00:30:07.000 --> 00:30:11.160
tries to put as much of the
food system into one place as possible so

425
00:30:11.200 --> 00:30:15.839
that you can launch many different types
of agricultural engineers. So someone who makes

426
00:30:15.880 --> 00:30:21.039
salsa in a in a kitchen next
to the farm that's growing it right those

427
00:30:21.079 --> 00:30:22.680
all of a sudden there's a synergy
between those two companies and they both do

428
00:30:22.799 --> 00:30:26.759
better the salts of person buys directly
from there, from the person right next

429
00:30:26.799 --> 00:30:30.640
door. They also know there's a
direct market to their product and it lasts

430
00:30:30.680 --> 00:30:36.240
longer by making So there's a lot
that's just an example. But there's in

431
00:30:36.319 --> 00:30:41.119
Detroit they have none of these things
called agra hoods where they're actually taking parts

432
00:30:41.160 --> 00:30:45.480
of the city that have been decimated
by poverty and they're putting farms in the

433
00:30:45.519 --> 00:30:48.680
center of them and putting houses around
them. And they're finding that people want

434
00:30:48.680 --> 00:30:53.079
to live next to the farm and
that it increases the value of the property,

435
00:30:53.200 --> 00:30:56.960
That makes it more beautiful, it
makes it greener, and then actually

436
00:30:56.960 --> 00:31:02.759
the hot farms become connected to that
agricultural center. So we're looking and right

437
00:31:02.799 --> 00:31:06.720
now at how do we conception at
the hun Institute. Is it possible to

438
00:31:06.839 --> 00:31:10.799
link with partners of housing programs and
create working farms where the people who are

439
00:31:10.839 --> 00:31:17.240
farming live on those farms in communities
of poverty, evangelizing the community around them,

440
00:31:17.799 --> 00:31:21.440
creating an on ramp for people who
are coming in. Say, for

441
00:31:21.480 --> 00:31:23.839
example, you have someone who's coming
out from prison, you teach them to

442
00:31:23.920 --> 00:31:26.200
farm, you get them a job
in the farm, and you also provide

443
00:31:26.240 --> 00:31:30.559
housing for them. Right, you
also have a way for them to access

444
00:31:30.759 --> 00:31:34.440
a trade. These things can get
connected. So agra hubs are really about

445
00:31:34.519 --> 00:31:40.759
parts of the foods is being concentrated
in the agricultural area. I'll give you

446
00:31:40.759 --> 00:31:44.039
another crazy example to go far as
extreme, and this is in the Netherlands

447
00:31:44.079 --> 00:31:48.319
called Regen Village, and that's saying
what they call it closed loop village.

448
00:31:48.720 --> 00:31:53.759
What a closed loop village is is
every aspect of that town is an input

449
00:31:53.799 --> 00:31:56.599
for another system. So, for
example, the water from your house,

450
00:31:57.119 --> 00:32:02.880
the gray water goes into the fields
to water the plants. The brown water

451
00:32:04.000 --> 00:32:07.799
goes in gets recycled through black soldier
lavae and gets converted into energy and gets

452
00:32:07.839 --> 00:32:13.160
and then the slack soldier lavae converts
it into compost and that goes to feed

453
00:32:13.160 --> 00:32:16.160
the fish. The fish waste goes
to feed the acaponic system. The vestels

454
00:32:16.160 --> 00:32:20.599
from the acaponic system feed the fish, but also then feed the cattle and

455
00:32:20.759 --> 00:32:23.640
feed the people. The cattle for
fornice minor which creates soil, as well

456
00:32:23.680 --> 00:32:29.480
as the household waste creating soil which
creates urban agriculture. The urban agriculture then

457
00:32:29.519 --> 00:32:31.920
feeds and so you can see how
the whole cycles. But they have entire

458
00:32:32.000 --> 00:32:37.480
closed communities that have no waste and
create their own energy from their outputs.

459
00:32:38.240 --> 00:32:44.079
And that's another whole level. And
that's very concentrated using techniques called airponics and

460
00:32:44.119 --> 00:32:51.319
hydroponics and acaponics, super high concentrated
urban production and many techniques. But these

461
00:32:51.319 --> 00:32:53.720
things are available to us now.
And the nice thing about being coupled with

462
00:32:53.759 --> 00:32:59.720
the research center like SMU LEO School
of Engineering is that we have the engineers

463
00:32:59.759 --> 00:33:02.480
who you know. You say to
a senior student, say I need you

464
00:33:02.559 --> 00:33:07.400
to take a shipping container and turn
this into a refrigerate refrigeration system for a

465
00:33:07.440 --> 00:33:09.880
farm. They'll figure a way how
to do that. And I needed to

466
00:33:09.880 --> 00:33:13.559
be closed system. In other words, I need to be net zero and

467
00:33:13.640 --> 00:33:15.240
energy dury. I need you to
generate the energy that you need to cool

468
00:33:15.279 --> 00:33:20.200
the cool the container. Those students
will find a way and they'll get it

469
00:33:20.240 --> 00:33:22.720
done if we can resource them,
and we can and we can encourage them,

470
00:33:22.799 --> 00:33:25.759
and that's a great way for them
to use their knowledge, connect to

471
00:33:25.799 --> 00:33:30.839
the community and provide a really needed
asset. So the Hunt Institute and the

472
00:33:30.839 --> 00:33:35.680
Heart Center at SMU and the Law
School of Engineering are really interested in working

473
00:33:36.240 --> 00:33:38.440
and what my role is to be
a conduit to help them connect to these

474
00:33:38.480 --> 00:33:43.960
projects so they can use their engineering
knowledge to have real connection into these systems.

475
00:33:44.000 --> 00:33:47.440
So, for example, Heart engineering
students next semester are going to build

476
00:33:47.440 --> 00:33:52.279
a cooling system for the ceiling farm
so that the seedilings survive in the summer,

477
00:33:52.000 --> 00:33:55.079
and then we'll drive it. We'll
do water catchment systems and train community

478
00:33:55.079 --> 00:33:59.119
members and how those stuff works.
But those are the kind of things that

479
00:34:00.160 --> 00:34:06.240
nice synergy having a world class university
can link into food production systems. And

480
00:34:06.279 --> 00:34:10.039
then you add housing components and other
nonprofits who are doing great work and realize

481
00:34:10.079 --> 00:34:16.719
what your housing program can synergistically fit
right into this farming program, and then

482
00:34:16.760 --> 00:34:22.360
we can double its impact. I
want to comment on what you said about

483
00:34:22.400 --> 00:34:27.079
the ag hood in Detroit. What
I think is fascinating about that, And

484
00:34:27.119 --> 00:34:30.039
I don't know if you have data
about this, I'm sure you probably do,

485
00:34:30.199 --> 00:34:34.440
knowing you is, it strikes me
that whoever was behind that has done

486
00:34:34.639 --> 00:34:38.159
an incredible job of being able to
literally repurpose a problem city, right.

487
00:34:38.400 --> 00:34:44.760
And I think that that solution is
incredibly elegant, incredibly smart when talk about

488
00:34:44.840 --> 00:34:47.119
taking something that people would say,
well, we should just start over and

489
00:34:47.199 --> 00:34:52.440
making it an elegant and beautiful attraction, right. And that's really what asset

490
00:34:52.480 --> 00:34:54.920
based community development is, okay,
Right, And that's where the philosophy stumps

491
00:34:54.960 --> 00:34:59.880
from a participatory action where you look
at an area and instead of defining fight

492
00:35:00.079 --> 00:35:02.440
what it doesn't have. Oh it's
poor, Oh it has no skills.

493
00:35:02.679 --> 00:35:06.840
Oh it does have skills. It's
just unseen. And it isn't just poor.

494
00:35:06.880 --> 00:35:09.679
There are people living there and working. So you don't define from the

495
00:35:09.679 --> 00:35:13.760
outside what you don't see. You
go into the communities and talk to the

496
00:35:13.760 --> 00:35:16.320
communities and find out what skills are
present, what assets are the present,

497
00:35:16.360 --> 00:35:21.119
and how can you leverage those assets
in a unique way to create growth up

498
00:35:21.639 --> 00:35:24.960
Because charities are wonderful, we need
them and especially when people are hungry,

499
00:35:24.960 --> 00:35:28.599
you need to feed them. But
then we need to ask the next question

500
00:35:28.639 --> 00:35:30.159
is how do we stop them from
being hungry? And how do we do

501
00:35:30.199 --> 00:35:34.280
it in a way that provides dignity
to people? And the only way you

502
00:35:34.280 --> 00:35:36.920
can really do that is by saying, what skills do you have that we

503
00:35:36.960 --> 00:35:39.840
can leverage or what assets do you
have locally that we can leverage to create

504
00:35:39.960 --> 00:35:45.920
bottom up sustainable self growth. It's
that whole teacher man to fish, give

505
00:35:45.920 --> 00:35:52.280
a man a fish model. But
you have if you recognize that this is

506
00:35:52.880 --> 00:35:57.400
a part of town that has been
systematically underdeveloped for a long period of time,

507
00:35:58.000 --> 00:36:01.440
it is an investment, does it. So there's a lot of things

508
00:36:01.480 --> 00:36:06.440
that are currently not present that you
may have to come in and there's some

509
00:36:06.639 --> 00:36:09.360
if you can find people like Tyrone
Day right, you find somebody with that

510
00:36:09.480 --> 00:36:15.960
skill set sitting there right waiting to
be connected in and connecting someone like that

511
00:36:16.000 --> 00:36:20.360
in and what he can produce and
what he's already reducing and the impact that

512
00:36:20.440 --> 00:36:23.199
has when he manages now the farm
at the Ulster Street shelter, So the

513
00:36:23.280 --> 00:36:28.719
Aulsin Street Shelter has a hope garden
paid for by leadership Dallas that is a

514
00:36:28.760 --> 00:36:32.119
beautiful example of and and Tyrone manages
that and provides frest vegetables to the homeless

515
00:36:32.119 --> 00:36:36.000
community and they learn how to farm
too. It's one of those things that

516
00:36:36.360 --> 00:36:38.440
a little tiny Hey, wait,
there's an asset that you can leverage.

517
00:36:38.719 --> 00:36:42.639
Here's the place you can connect it. Here's a resource place where you can

518
00:36:42.679 --> 00:36:45.320
connect outside resources to make sure that
works and then you know, watch it

519
00:36:45.360 --> 00:36:52.079
grow. That's the way, and
I agree that's the way Detroit recognize this

520
00:36:52.159 --> 00:36:53.920
issue. That's what Dallas can do
that too. Any city in America,

521
00:36:54.119 --> 00:37:00.280
any city in the world can recognize
that. That's the way I believe that

522
00:37:00.679 --> 00:37:06.480
smart systematic approaches can be can help
a city go from a have have not

523
00:37:06.639 --> 00:37:14.239
mindset charity need to a develop co
develop together. But recognize it's the person

524
00:37:14.280 --> 00:37:17.519
who's living in those communities, whose
perspective is the most important, whose skills

525
00:37:17.519 --> 00:37:22.480
are the most important, and design
around them with them, not on them.

526
00:37:22.480 --> 00:37:25.679
Will come in less superheroes. I
really want to acknowledge on the beautiful

527
00:37:25.760 --> 00:37:30.519
role that you're playing and being able
to look for that talent in a community

528
00:37:30.559 --> 00:37:34.599
and then find a way to leverage
and then connect those different talents into and

529
00:37:34.960 --> 00:37:38.760
really make them into a fabric that
you have and something that's really positively impacting

530
00:37:38.760 --> 00:37:42.280
the community. I really want to
acknowledge you for that. It is such

531
00:37:42.280 --> 00:37:45.199
a privilege to get to know you
and have you encount you as my friend.

532
00:37:45.519 --> 00:37:47.000
That's really uncomfortable. I know it
is. I know it is,

533
00:37:47.079 --> 00:37:51.159
but I have to say it because
it's amazing to hear what you're doing and

534
00:37:51.639 --> 00:37:53.000
with that you can still stay uncomfortable. And we're going to go on a

535
00:37:53.000 --> 00:37:57.880
break. How's that I've at least
Cortez your host. We've been on a

536
00:37:57.960 --> 00:38:00.000
year with doctor Owen Lynch, who
is an associate profess in the Middle School

537
00:38:00.039 --> 00:38:04.440
of Arts at so the Methodist University
here in Dallas. He also serves as

538
00:38:04.480 --> 00:38:07.119
the director of Get Healthy Dallas,
a nonprofit organization he helped form that is

539
00:38:07.199 --> 00:38:12.480
dedicated to addressing the lack of healthy
food options, adequate education, and economic

540
00:38:12.519 --> 00:38:15.840
development opportunities in Dallas, with special
focus on the South Dallas and Fair Park

541
00:38:15.920 --> 00:38:19.960
area. He joins us today right
here with me my Dallas office studio.

542
00:38:20.519 --> 00:38:37.679
Stay with us, We'll be right
back. Friend us on Facebook to keep

543
00:38:37.760 --> 00:38:44.599
up with what's empowering the world.
Voice America Empowerment Alice Cortez is a speaker

544
00:38:44.719 --> 00:38:50.199
and engagement and development catalyst. She
designs and delivers professional development, leadership and

545
00:38:50.440 --> 00:38:54.199
engagement workshops and can bring her expertise
to your organization. She will help ignite

546
00:38:54.320 --> 00:39:00.760
meaningful development within your workforce that will
increase employee engagement, performance and retention.

547
00:39:00.119 --> 00:39:05.039
To learn more or to invite Elise
to speak to your organization, please visit

548
00:39:05.079 --> 00:39:09.719
her at www dot Elisecortes dot com. She would welcome the opportunity to help

549
00:39:09.760 --> 00:39:15.199
get your employees working on purpose.
We're making it easier to listen to the

550
00:39:15.280 --> 00:39:20.519
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551
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552
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553
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554
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555
00:39:37.880 --> 00:39:52.360
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556
00:39:53.840 --> 00:39:59.719
Get inspired, encouraged and connected on
our Lively Award winning Healthy Living Power

557
00:40:00.440 --> 00:40:05.239
Star Style. Be the star you
are with host and Empowerment Architect sendy O.

558
00:40:05.320 --> 00:40:09.360
Brian live every Wednesday at four pm
Pacific on the Voice America Empowerment Channel.

559
00:40:09.480 --> 00:40:14.719
Tune into the Power Party for positive, uplifting, life changing talk radio.

560
00:40:15.039 --> 00:40:30.760
Visit Starstyle Radio dot com. You
follow us on Twitter for more great

561
00:40:30.840 --> 00:40:45.320
ideas at Voice America Empowerment. This
is Working on Purpose with Elise Cortes.

562
00:40:45.760 --> 00:40:49.559
To reach our program today, please
call in to one triple eight three four

563
00:40:49.679 --> 00:40:53.559
six nine one four one. Again
that's one triple eight three four six nine

564
00:40:53.679 --> 00:40:58.920
one four one. You may also
send an email to a lease A l

565
00:40:59.119 --> 00:41:05.360
I s E at Elicecortes dot com. Now back to Working on Purpose.

566
00:41:08.119 --> 00:41:12.119
Thanks for staying with us, and
welcome back to Working on Purpose if you're

567
00:41:12.199 --> 00:41:14.800
just tuning in. My guest is
doctor Owen Lynch, who is an Associate

568
00:41:14.880 --> 00:41:17.559
professor in the Medal School of Arts
so the Methodist University here in Dallas.

569
00:41:17.960 --> 00:41:22.840
Outside of the Communications Department, he
holds the positions of Senior Research Fellow and

570
00:41:22.920 --> 00:41:27.320
Director of Community Research and Engagement for
the Hunt Institute of Engineering and Humanity within

571
00:41:27.360 --> 00:41:30.119
the Lyle School of Engineering at SMU. He also serves as a director of

572
00:41:30.199 --> 00:41:35.039
Get Healthy Dallas, a nonprofit organization. He helped form that is dedicated to

573
00:41:35.079 --> 00:41:39.119
addressing the lack of healthy food options, adequate education, and economic development opportunities

574
00:41:39.199 --> 00:41:43.880
in Dallas, with special focus on
the South Dallas and the Fair Park area.

575
00:41:44.239 --> 00:41:47.559
I'm your host, Alise Cortes so
Owen. In this last little bit

576
00:41:47.639 --> 00:41:52.239
here, what I want to start
talking about is what you can tell us

577
00:41:52.280 --> 00:41:57.760
about local farms, why they're important, what function do they serve? Thanks

578
00:41:57.880 --> 00:42:00.559
Chriuse. What's really important to recognizes
it that I'm one person talking, but

579
00:42:00.639 --> 00:42:06.159
there's one hundred people who are also
working with me or way beyond me,

580
00:42:06.280 --> 00:42:10.079
doing great works in their community.
Local farms are important because or even local

581
00:42:10.159 --> 00:42:15.559
gardens, there are places where people
are growing locally for their communities, or

582
00:42:15.599 --> 00:42:21.960
each growing locally to provide jobs and
selling to the local restaurant industry, which

583
00:42:22.000 --> 00:42:25.159
we don't have enough of quite yet. But there are a couple of shining

584
00:42:25.239 --> 00:42:29.840
examples, and I think that probably
the best examples that I can think of

585
00:42:30.320 --> 00:42:32.320
are three different models. Ones at
Paul Quinn, which is probably one of

586
00:42:32.360 --> 00:42:36.719
the oldest, and they have the
Wee over Me Farm where they took one

587
00:42:36.760 --> 00:42:40.360
of their football fields and they turned
their football field into an actual farm that

588
00:42:40.559 --> 00:42:45.920
the students work on to work as
part of their college to pay for college,

589
00:42:45.000 --> 00:42:50.559
and then they produce vegetables for the
students, actually for the Dallas Cowboys

590
00:42:50.559 --> 00:42:53.400
Stadium for the spinach, and then
they also produce with our local community as

591
00:42:53.440 --> 00:42:59.639
well. So that's a model that's
very tight and they're very well run farm,

592
00:43:00.239 --> 00:43:02.039
and that's the place that would be
a great place to give and to

593
00:43:02.280 --> 00:43:06.960
serve if you want to do volunteer
hours. Another one is Bonton Farms,

594
00:43:07.000 --> 00:43:10.440
which has gotten a lot of press
recently and deservedly. So that's why men

595
00:43:10.679 --> 00:43:14.239
founded by a man, Darren Babcock, who went to Bonton, which at

596
00:43:14.239 --> 00:43:19.719
that time was considered one of the
most blighted neighborhoods in South Dallas, and

597
00:43:19.920 --> 00:43:23.360
he moved there to live, and
he moved there to change hearts and bring

598
00:43:23.440 --> 00:43:27.800
people closer to God. And he
found by living there that many of his

599
00:43:27.920 --> 00:43:30.000
neighbors didn't have access to food.
So he started growing vegetables and then he

600
00:43:30.039 --> 00:43:32.800
found people coming and not knowing what
they were and came and picking and eating,

601
00:43:34.079 --> 00:43:36.480
and then he had turned into a
small little acre farm and now he's

602
00:43:36.480 --> 00:43:39.679
got an off site farm too that
supplies it and He'll be the first person

603
00:43:39.760 --> 00:43:44.800
to tell you that Bonton's a great
success. It's employing people, it's evangelizing,

604
00:43:44.920 --> 00:43:47.719
it's bringing food into the community.
But we need twenty thirty Bonton farms.

605
00:43:47.760 --> 00:43:51.400
We want to get the mass production
to make a viable market. And

606
00:43:51.480 --> 00:43:54.119
also really changed the community landscape.
The last one is one I worked with

607
00:43:54.199 --> 00:43:58.760
a lot and and a partner with
his Big Text Farms, and this is

608
00:43:58.760 --> 00:44:02.079
probably the most innovative, interesting one
in terms of out of the box thinking.

609
00:44:02.679 --> 00:44:07.440
And it was actually the State Bar
of Texas, as many of us

610
00:44:07.519 --> 00:44:10.400
know, is the only time when
many people in Dallas go to South Dallas,

611
00:44:10.679 --> 00:44:15.360
particularly South Dallas Bear Park. What
you may not realize is that it's

612
00:44:15.480 --> 00:44:19.079
there as a landscape for the whole
rest of the year, and it sits

613
00:44:19.119 --> 00:44:22.519
there as a heat island. The
tarmacs there, the parking lots are there,

614
00:44:22.159 --> 00:44:25.840
and it doesn't get fully as used. It's actually a city park.

615
00:44:27.639 --> 00:44:31.199
So the State Fair of Texas as
an organization, and a man named Jason

616
00:44:31.280 --> 00:44:37.039
Hayes and his farmer now Drew,
realized that this was a parking lot that

617
00:44:37.079 --> 00:44:39.199
they could play with because they were
living in them, they were working in

618
00:44:39.199 --> 00:44:42.719
the middle of the food desert,
and they had this asset that wasn't being

619
00:44:42.800 --> 00:44:45.480
used for nine months of the year. What could they do with it?

620
00:44:45.559 --> 00:44:50.440
And they started farming using pallette boxes
that are movable on their parking lots,

621
00:44:50.760 --> 00:44:53.199
and they went from one hundred boxes
two years ago to a five hundred and

622
00:44:53.239 --> 00:44:57.760
eighty boxes this last year, and
they're actually going to expand that number.

623
00:44:58.159 --> 00:45:00.760
And they converted the whole greenhousing system
into an acoponic system, which is going

624
00:45:00.840 --> 00:45:05.239
to produce massive amounts of food.
They don't sell the food. They actually

625
00:45:05.280 --> 00:45:08.880
give the food to local diabetes centers
and other churches to give food to the

626
00:45:08.920 --> 00:45:14.000
community. Are not homeless shelters,
but they're producing an incredible amount of food

627
00:45:14.519 --> 00:45:17.639
out of those centers. But what's
really incredible is they have these mobile farm

628
00:45:17.760 --> 00:45:22.760
boxes and they were connecting with me
and working with them with their mission and

629
00:45:22.800 --> 00:45:25.440
goal. We said, well,
during the fair, these have to move

630
00:45:25.480 --> 00:45:29.199
because the fair is needed for parking
lots, it's needed for vendors, it's

631
00:45:29.239 --> 00:45:31.559
needed for what runs the state fair, and what runs Their ability to do

632
00:45:31.639 --> 00:45:35.920
this farm is that's what pays for
it. So now what they're doing is

633
00:45:35.960 --> 00:45:37.800
a program they're called farming farms,
and this was co developed with the Hunt

634
00:45:37.840 --> 00:45:45.239
Institute and State Fair of Texas and
Big So they're taking the boxes during the

635
00:45:45.320 --> 00:45:49.480
fair time and then moving them into
the community, training people on those boxes,

636
00:45:49.760 --> 00:45:52.440
and if the community and members are
able to sustain them and use them

637
00:45:52.440 --> 00:45:54.840
and grow vegetables, they keep them. So literally, at the end,

638
00:45:54.960 --> 00:45:59.559
while the fair is going on and
you're paying your money into the fair,

639
00:46:00.039 --> 00:46:02.119
realize that some of that funding will
go to support these farming programs that will

640
00:46:02.119 --> 00:46:06.840
feed the community all year round.
But even more importantly, some of that

641
00:46:06.920 --> 00:46:09.760
money will go into actually farming farms
to other community members. The first woe

642
00:46:09.840 --> 00:46:14.760
was at Cornerstone Baptist Church, which
has one hundred boxes and is managing those

643
00:46:14.840 --> 00:46:19.840
for their homeless community right now.
So those are really interesting through very different

644
00:46:19.880 --> 00:46:25.320
models. One's like an agra hub
in a college, and one is a

645
00:46:25.400 --> 00:46:29.239
person who just said I'm going to
start an urban farm here that I'm going

646
00:46:29.320 --> 00:46:32.159
to use and now he's putting a
yoga studio in and a wellness center and

647
00:46:32.320 --> 00:46:37.400
a many many things, And please
go visit that website and to see the

648
00:46:37.800 --> 00:46:42.440
amazing work that's spinning from that project. And then the other is one that's

649
00:46:42.760 --> 00:46:45.840
looking at an asset, looking at
what isn't it what people most people saw

650
00:46:45.840 --> 00:46:49.519
as a detriment, saying that's an
asset, flipping that and now thinking about

651
00:46:49.559 --> 00:46:52.840
how can they use that to service
the community around them and do good work.

652
00:46:52.679 --> 00:46:57.239
And Drew the farmer, there is
a gem. He's one of the

653
00:46:57.280 --> 00:46:59.760
most generous people I've ever met in
my life. And he's a wealth of

654
00:47:00.679 --> 00:47:06.280
and he's constantly out in the community
helping people do their job and reach their

655
00:47:06.320 --> 00:47:08.719
farm and goes better. For example, last Saturday, he just helped me

656
00:47:08.800 --> 00:47:13.360
put up a hoop house in a
homeless shelter, even though I know he

657
00:47:13.480 --> 00:47:17.320
worked seventy hours that week probably helping
other So there's people like that who are

658
00:47:17.360 --> 00:47:22.719
real. One of the things that
my goal for Restoration Farm is to say

659
00:47:22.119 --> 00:47:27.800
there are real heroes out there really
putting their back into their work for their

660
00:47:27.800 --> 00:47:30.559
community and providing fresh food. And
I want to start featuring them on the

661
00:47:30.559 --> 00:47:37.119
Restorative Farm's website. Another man is
a name Brad Boa, and he's retired

662
00:47:37.199 --> 00:47:40.760
but has become He started a group
just how do we look at the Food

663
00:47:40.760 --> 00:47:45.039
Desert? And he's helping with the
food film called WTF Where's the Food but

664
00:47:45.119 --> 00:47:51.800
it probably stands with something else,
and he's looking at helping. He is

665
00:47:51.880 --> 00:47:54.400
a connector, and he's a real
one plus one equals three guy, and

666
00:47:54.519 --> 00:47:58.519
he really has his vision. And
he's one of the leading people behind the

667
00:47:58.559 --> 00:48:04.360
Store to Farms as an umbrella organization
to leverage everybody's strength and encourage everyone in

668
00:48:04.760 --> 00:48:07.440
the food desert. Because he like
me, and this will come to your

669
00:48:07.480 --> 00:48:10.159
last point, what can we do? I went down to the Food Desert

670
00:48:10.280 --> 00:48:14.760
seven eight I can't even remember now, and I drove down I'd never been

671
00:48:14.840 --> 00:48:16.719
there, into the heart of South
Dallas, and I looked at it for

672
00:48:16.800 --> 00:48:21.360
this project, and I got angry. I said, how can we live

673
00:48:21.400 --> 00:48:24.000
in a community that is so close, that has so much growth, and

674
00:48:24.159 --> 00:48:30.360
yet just across the highway we have
chronic poverty, isolated poverty, and people

675
00:48:30.400 --> 00:48:35.199
who don't have access to fresh,
healthy food. That's wrong. And I

676
00:48:35.360 --> 00:48:42.159
was lucky enough to just get tenure. So I'm a very religious driven person.

677
00:48:42.639 --> 00:48:45.599
So for me, I said,
you know, what is a tenure

678
00:48:45.719 --> 00:48:50.760
is my gift and it affords me
the opportunity to have long term horizon points

679
00:48:50.800 --> 00:48:55.119
where I can focus on a large
project and have the job security to take

680
00:48:55.199 --> 00:48:59.920
the time and think what can I
do over the next twenty years to make

681
00:49:00.119 --> 00:49:02.039
difference? And I can take that
scope. That's a gift that most people

682
00:49:02.119 --> 00:49:06.480
don't get in life. How can
I use that gift to help other people

683
00:49:06.559 --> 00:49:09.360
better? So for me, it
was a natural. I got tenure just

684
00:49:09.480 --> 00:49:13.880
the point when I became aware of
food deserts and I said, okay,

685
00:49:14.119 --> 00:49:15.760
God, if this is where you
want me to serve, then this is

686
00:49:15.800 --> 00:49:20.320
where I'll serve. If this is
where the and if I can find the

687
00:49:20.360 --> 00:49:22.719
place with the lines of the thinness, that's where I'm going to serve too.

688
00:49:22.159 --> 00:49:25.840
And I think a lot of people
will want to come down and donations

689
00:49:25.920 --> 00:49:30.480
to restorative farms, or donations to
local farms, or buying local fresh vegetables,

690
00:49:30.599 --> 00:49:35.679
all of that really helps. But
also recognize if you're an accountant bind

691
00:49:35.760 --> 00:49:40.039
an organization and they may need some
accounting help right or whatever your skill set

692
00:49:40.159 --> 00:49:43.559
is. But there's lots of farms
that you can get connected into. Be

693
00:49:43.639 --> 00:49:46.760
it through a homeless shelter like Austin
Street Center, or be it through Bonton

694
00:49:46.880 --> 00:49:51.079
Farms, or be it through big
text farms. There's lots of places that

695
00:49:51.159 --> 00:49:55.039
you can get connected. Go to
restorative farms and connect through and you can

696
00:49:55.159 --> 00:50:01.559
be plugged into a world that's looking
for solutions. There's also great people who

697
00:50:01.599 --> 00:50:07.280
are looking at doing co op modeled
grocery stores, and how do we encourage

698
00:50:07.320 --> 00:50:10.440
those in the community that are owned
by the community. Uh, those are

699
00:50:10.480 --> 00:50:15.599
going to need a lot of support
and connections from the outside. Even if

700
00:50:15.639 --> 00:50:22.119
you have building skills, how can
you treat train people how to use construction

701
00:50:22.760 --> 00:50:25.920
tools whatever it may be. What
I typically like to think once again,

702
00:50:27.159 --> 00:50:30.480
learn people, learn and talk to
people where they are and find out with

703
00:50:30.480 --> 00:50:32.519
their interests are and how you can
help them by learning what their skills and

704
00:50:32.559 --> 00:50:37.159
assets are. But also don't just
come and give or do a big community

705
00:50:37.239 --> 00:50:39.599
day where you know, you paint
a house and feel good. If you

706
00:50:39.679 --> 00:50:45.280
have some skills that really can leverage
train somebody or do something I think that

707
00:50:45.400 --> 00:50:50.239
has the most impact. So that's
where that's part of my goal is to

708
00:50:50.719 --> 00:50:55.119
think about how can we utilize the
great skill sets of North Dallas to to

709
00:50:57.000 --> 00:51:00.719
help South does grow organically by itself
and create a food up. I mean,

710
00:51:00.800 --> 00:51:04.320
we have the opportunity of creating a
food oasis in South Dallas as so

711
00:51:04.440 --> 00:51:08.840
much land that could grow for the
whole Dallas local sustainable food. Why are

712
00:51:08.880 --> 00:51:13.920
we getting ninety percent of our food
from south of the border in terms of

713
00:51:14.000 --> 00:51:17.599
vegetables, right, So let me
let me do this really quick here,

714
00:51:17.639 --> 00:51:21.239
and we're getting close to running at
a time for the show. But what

715
00:51:21.320 --> 00:51:23.880
I want to make sure that we
presence is that for the listeners. Boy,

716
00:51:23.920 --> 00:51:27.039
if you don't hear passion, if
you don't hear a purpose in this,

717
00:51:27.199 --> 00:51:30.360
I don't know how to presence it
for you. But I think you

718
00:51:30.440 --> 00:51:34.400
got that. So what I want
to make sure that we get too is

719
00:51:34.440 --> 00:51:37.920
that there are people here who are
locally listening in Dallas, and they understand

720
00:51:37.960 --> 00:51:40.360
Paulkland College, they understand Restorative Farms
now, and they probably know where fair

721
00:51:40.440 --> 00:51:44.920
Park is. So you're suggesting that
if somebody wants to help, they go

722
00:51:45.039 --> 00:51:47.360
to Restorative Farms dot com. They
go to Restorative Farms dot com and get

723
00:51:47.400 --> 00:51:52.159
connected into the network. They can
go to Bonton Farms. They can go

724
00:51:52.280 --> 00:52:00.440
to the Hump Institute at SMU.
They can email me at O Lynch dot

725
00:52:00.639 --> 00:52:02.280
edu. So that's O. L
y n C h at s m U

726
00:52:02.400 --> 00:52:07.880
dot d U, and I can
connect them in. But those are all

727
00:52:07.000 --> 00:52:15.039
really useful places to start. There's
communities, so that's probably the easiest access

728
00:52:15.119 --> 00:52:19.239
points they can go on to get
healthy. Dallas dot Com as well.

729
00:52:19.599 --> 00:52:22.800
But I would say Restorative Farms is
going to try to become the umbrella to

730
00:52:22.920 --> 00:52:27.800
connect all these different projects that people
can find their space that they're most interested

731
00:52:27.880 --> 00:52:34.000
in. But Bonson Farms is wonderful
work and great volunteers. Me o a

732
00:52:34.079 --> 00:52:37.079
Wee farm at pul Quinn. There's
lots of places to get stuck in.

733
00:52:37.880 --> 00:52:42.880
What if you're someone listening in New
York. What if you're somebody listening in

734
00:52:43.000 --> 00:52:46.639
England, somebody listening in in Africa, how would you direct them to try

735
00:52:46.719 --> 00:52:52.840
to be part of this movement?
I think that recognize that that's a great

736
00:52:52.920 --> 00:52:57.280
question, and I think that to
me, it is recognized that there's something

737
00:52:57.400 --> 00:53:00.519
interesting in food. We have Thanksgiving. I've been to your house with Thanksgiving

738
00:53:00.559 --> 00:53:05.880
dinner, and one of the things
and many religious ceremonies are about sitting down

739
00:53:05.920 --> 00:53:09.119
and breaking bread or sitting and eating
with each other. There's something that connects

740
00:53:09.199 --> 00:53:13.440
us to when we eat with each
other, and we recognize that human eating

741
00:53:13.840 --> 00:53:17.880
and community around food, but also
the nourishment of body and the wellness that

742
00:53:19.000 --> 00:53:22.320
provides even for a young child to
learn. There's lots of great organizations that

743
00:53:22.519 --> 00:53:29.400
focus on food and food equity and
access as their point to help others.

744
00:53:29.760 --> 00:53:31.480
And food is also an industry.
It creates jobs. You have people like

745
00:53:31.559 --> 00:53:37.079
Cafe Momentum and Chad Houser who trains
young men for prison to become chefs.

746
00:53:37.559 --> 00:53:40.400
You have people like Jenny Ayres who
works with children at risk, who makes

747
00:53:40.440 --> 00:53:45.519
our children have really good food before
they have school. You have people like

748
00:53:45.599 --> 00:53:47.960
Ryan Easton who works with kids teaching
kids, who works with the restaurant associations

749
00:53:49.000 --> 00:53:53.320
in health industry to use the culinary
schools to teach healthy habits. Search food

750
00:53:54.119 --> 00:54:00.280
and charity or food and programs,
and look food access and equity locally you'll

751
00:54:00.320 --> 00:54:05.760
find some really interesting directly connected because
food is perishable, right, you can't

752
00:54:06.280 --> 00:54:09.199
and so the nonprofits that are centering
in that world are going to connect jobs,

753
00:54:09.360 --> 00:54:15.920
people and the thing that is most
physically needed for communities and recognize what's

754
00:54:15.960 --> 00:54:17.480
a food doesert, There's a job
does it, There's a health doesert,

755
00:54:17.519 --> 00:54:22.480
there's an infrastructure doesert, and sometimes
unfortunately there's them be a hope does it?

756
00:54:22.440 --> 00:54:25.960
And so it's a place to plug
in, but once you plug in,

757
00:54:27.000 --> 00:54:30.039
you'll realize it's the biggest systematic problem. It's really about chronic poverty that

758
00:54:30.159 --> 00:54:36.159
is isolated from the growth of the
current supply chain. Doctor Owen Lynch,

759
00:54:36.280 --> 00:54:38.400
it is a pleasure to call you
a friend and a colleague and iso aploque

760
00:54:38.400 --> 00:54:40.280
what you're up to. I thank
you for joining me as my guest,

761
00:54:40.320 --> 00:54:44.119
and we sat back and I listened
so you could say as much as you

762
00:54:44.159 --> 00:54:46.440
could to our listeners. Thank you
so much. If you want to learn

763
00:54:46.440 --> 00:54:49.920
more about doctor Owen Lynch, he's
already told you that, you can go

764
00:54:50.079 --> 00:54:53.719
to Restorative Farms dot com. You
could go to healthy What does it get

765
00:54:53.800 --> 00:54:58.840
Healthy Dallas dot com. Definitely send
him an email if you like what he's

766
00:54:58.920 --> 00:55:00.760
up to, you want to support
him anyway in his team, send him

767
00:55:00.760 --> 00:55:05.800
an email at O. Lynch at
SMU dot edu. That's O. L.

768
00:55:06.079 --> 00:55:10.159
Y Nch at SMU dot edu.
Join us next week when we're there,

769
00:55:10.239 --> 00:55:14.360
when we're on the air with Greg
Pike, who is actually a man

770
00:55:14.440 --> 00:55:16.800
with many hats, a lot like
doctor Owen Lynch and his case. Greg

771
00:55:16.920 --> 00:55:22.440
is a CPA and accounting professional and
also a comedian and here's where it gets

772
00:55:22.440 --> 00:55:25.039
ironic. We'll be talking about the
importance of incorporating meaning in our work and

773
00:55:25.079 --> 00:55:29.360
the way that he's discovered how to
do that in playful ways. See you

774
00:55:29.440 --> 00:55:30.760
then, remember that work is at
least one third of our life, So

775
00:55:31.039 --> 00:55:42.800
let's work on purpose. We hope
you've enjoyed this week's program. Be sure

776
00:55:42.840 --> 00:55:46.639
to tune into Working on Purpose,
featuring your host Alis Cortes, every Wednesday

777
00:55:46.719 --> 00:55:52.639
at six pm Eastern Time three pm
Pacific Time on the Voice America Empowerment Channel.

778
00:55:52.039 --> 00:55:54.760
This week, find your life's purpose
at work.