Championing Change in a Fight for Food Access
About two years ago, I founded the Pinehurst Farmers Market in Columbia, South Carolina, when I saw that both grocery stores within walking distance of the Pinehurst neighborhood had closed suddenly. I realized that a food apartheid situation had been created in my community, and I knew something had to change.
Inspired by Leah Penniman of Soul Fire Farm at a Black Farmers and Urban Gardeners Conference in Georgia, I chose to be the change I was looking for in my community. “If you’re looking for someone to save you, no one is coming. You’ll have to save yourself,” Penniman said.
Those words were a call to action to create a solution to the issue of food access in the Pinehurst neighborhood. My vision was to form a self-sustaining system that would create healthy, organic food options for the
