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Planting "Seeds" of Love at Any Age
A Global Voice of Peace invites you to a moment of peace
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Helping humanity live a long, happy & healthy life |
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Victor Manzano is the “Moringa” Man. A 94-year-old (young!) Victor Manzano combines his passion for agriculture and healthy living on his USDA-certified organic Moringa Tree farm in Wailuku on the island of Maui, Hawaii. Growing up in the Philippines, Victor says the Moringa tree, a nutrient-dense plant, was a dietary staple.
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And it still is. “It’s why I’m still alive and kicking,” he said. Its health benefits cover the gamut from nutrients to immune system. With every tree he plants and harvests, Manzano hopes to bring good health to others, whether they are nine or 94.
“My main mission is to help humanity,” he explained. “I want to help people live a long, happy and healthy life."
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Garden of Eden in Brooklyn, New York
Gylian Solay's Story
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In the summers, during the mid-fifties, my Uncle Morris went into some of the worst neighborhoods in Brooklyn and transformed derelict inner city lots of cracked cement, broken glass, and trash into thriving gardens of vegetables and flowers.
Like the Pied Piper and his followers, as a small 7-year-old, I gleefully set off with him and his two children - my cousins Susie, three years older and Andy, nine months younger than me.
In addition to gardening, my uncle’s other gift was teaching children, whether they were street kids or homebound. With empathy and love of his craft, he brought light and laughter to their solitary and often dismal worlds. We cleared the lots, laid soil, and planted seeds. Little by little, with much skepticism from the community, the neighborhood kid
came to work with us, and protect it. Soon the rest of the neighborhood pitched in.
Everyone watched in awe as tiny shoots popped their heads up, winking at us, announcing their coming. Within weeks, the garden was a living mural of colors, textures, tastes, sizes, shapes, and smells. We all shared the bounty of creation in this Garden of Eden blooming in Brooklyn.
The neighborhood morphed into a reflection of the garden: people came together, worked together, met each other, learned about each other in a new way. It was now a safe haven, a community’s Peace of Place.
Winter washed away the garden, but we’d return the next summer to start all over again. My uncle taught me to see beneath the rubbish and dereliction, and see it's inherent possiblity of beauty. And I'm still gardening!
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Green Bronx Machine
"I grow relationships. Children are my seeds. It's love and about changing hearts and minds. Kids becoming organically grown citizens, staying in school, learning and going on to jobs"... all unheard of in the South Bronx till Stephen Ritz started the Green Bronx Machine.
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It only takes a moment after meeting Stephen to know that this is a man devoted to changing the lives of his students. Through passion, patience, and the power of a plant that produces real food (as in fresh fruits and vegetables), Stephen Ritz and his Green Bronx Machine are building healthy minds and bodies and empowering thousands of children to discover and exploit the potential they never knew they had.
PLEASE WATCH THE VIDEO: This video goes beyond gardening and will delight you in its creativity. Please take the time to watch. You won't want to miss the ”Bicycle Blender.”
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A Young Boy with a Huge Heart:
Ian Wants to Feed Hungry Children
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Texas teenager Ian McKenna, got going in the fight against hunger when he was just eight years old (now 16). He learned that some of his Austin classmates were going without meals. And that's when he got the idea to grow a garden and donate food to his hungry neighbors.
Ian has been at it for several years now, donating all of his garden bounty and starting three other gardens at area schools to do the same. One of those gardens alone provided 1,000 pounds of produce in one year! A garden can be a powerful thing. “It’s important for everyone to be a good human, really make a good impact in their community,” McKenna said. "Hunger doesn't stop, so I won't stop until it's done."
Ian's caring belies his age. Please watch the video of this compassionate yound man in action.
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TIME said Austin's Ian McKenna was selected to be one of the five finalists for 2020 Kid of the Year out of 5,000 nominees between the ages of eight and 16 in the U.S.
Ian has help from a group called, "Katie's Krops," which supports and teaches youngsters to plant what we call Giving Gardens. All the food these kids grow gets donated!
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Katie’s Krops: It only takes a seedling!
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The idea for Katie’s Krops began with a 9-year-old girl and a 40 pound cabbage. In 2008 Katie brought home a tiny cabbage seedling from school as part of the Bonnie Plants Third Grade Cabbage Program.
She tended to her cabbage and cared for it until it grew to an amazing 40 pounds. Knowing her cabbage was special she donated to a soup kitchen where it helped to feed over 275 people.
Moved by the experience of seeing how many people could benefit from the donation of fresh produce to soup kitchens, Katie decided to start vegetable gardens and donate the harvest to help feed people in need.
Katie’s Krops now has 100 gardens growing across the country and has donated thousands and thousands of pounds of fresh produce to people in need.
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The mission of Katie’s Krops is to empower youth to start and maintain vegetable gardens of all sizes and donate the harvest to help feed people in need, as well as to assist and inspire others to do the same. The problem of hunger is real, Katie’s Krops mission is simple, we all can help because…it only takes a seedling!
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Journey through our website, A Global Voice of Peace, at www.agvop.com.
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