100 Seeds of Change

The Social Justice Learning Institute has developed the "100 Seeds of Change" Food System Initiative - a comprehensive, city-wide plan to create 100 urban gardens at homes, local schools, city parks and other locations with city youth & community members. The goal of this initiative is to transform Inglewood into a healthy living community by empowering residents to collaboratively be active in growing their own food in a local network. In the end, this initiative and the system it creates around the gardens in this network will be Inglewood’s first complete local healthy food production, aggregation and distribution system that is sustainable from the ground to the plate.

"100 Seeds of Change" is an initiative that emerged from the research conducted by our youth on food justice in Inglewood and South LA. We realized that in many communities, especially communities of color, individuals often lack affordable and accessible healthy food sources which results in increased health risk factors such as diabetes, obesity, hypertension, etc. In considering this fact and the existing food options (fast food restaurants, liquor stores and low quality chain supermarkets), we must question the systemic challenges facing our community and eliminate barriers preventing this access.

The 100 Seeds Of Change Food System Initiative intends to accomplish the following goals:

1. Educate and empower the community residents by providing novice to expert training of gardening techniques, food preparation, nutrition education, and the value of food justice.

2. Produce enough locally grown fresh fruit and vegetables through the network of the “100 Seeds of Change” community, school, and home gardens to meet existing healthy food needs in Inglewood and the south Los Angeles communities.

3. Aggregate the locally grown fresh fruits and vegetables and create the appropriate cleaning, inspection, and storage process

4. Distribute the produce through the “100 Seeds Of Change” distribution channels, making the produce available 1) by food sharing for growers of the “100 Seeds Of Change” network and 2) through affordable purchase by residents not in the network.