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When Troy Vincent Sr. walks through Trenton today, he sees both tremendous possibility and urgent need. The NFL Executive Vice President of Football Operations and his wife Tommi believe the key to unlocking that potential lies in organizations like Isles staying true to their mission of community-centered work.
"Isles is so critical because they're there. They're on the ground making sure that it's a shared responsibility of the community," Vincent said during a recent conversation about the organization's impact.
That perspective comes from lived experience for both partners. Vincent's connection to Isles runs deeper than most partnerships -- it's rooted in childhood memories of watching his grandfather Jefferson Vincent work alongside community leaders to transform a dangerous vacant lot into what would become the historic Chestnut Ave Three Point Garden in 1983.
Meanwhile, Tommi's own family tradition of community service was being shaped in West Trenton, where her grandmother served as executive director of the Lawrence Neighborhood Community Center and her mother held executive positions in community engagement.
Growing up on Faircrest Avenue in Trenton's Wilbur section during the early 1980s, a young Troy Vincent witnessed firsthand the power of community organizing. His grandfather and friends and neighbors came together around a shared concern: the Faircrest community had 30-odd homes but lacked access to fresh produce. "We didn't have many grocery stores, if any," Vincent recalled. The solution drew on the agricultural knowledge many community members brought from the South.
"My grandfather and some of the others, they came from the South. They understood gardening, they understood how to plant, tend to a garden, nurture crops, and harvest," Vincent explained. "They needed fresh produce, and they decided to grow their own vegetables because many weren't going up to Chambersburg or going across to another ward where they had grocery stores."
At the same time, Tommi was learning the value of community service through her family's work. "There was a constant engagement,” she recalled. “Going around in the van and taking senior citizens grocery shopping, or dropping off groceries, and packing up boxes and backpacks with school supplies. It really became not something that I did, but who I was. And that's a part of our family culture to this day." When Troy and Tommi married over 30 years ago, these parallel traditions of service naturally converged.
"It was just a very organic extension of the families that we came from, and it's something that we have instilled in our children as well, and so we live a lifestyle of service," Tommi explained.
Enter Marty Johnson and the early team at Isles. Vincent recalls hearing about "an organization called Isles and Marty used to come around, community meetings, the barbershop, listening to the old folks talk and just say, 'hey, we got to do something about this vacant lot.'" The collaboration between community residents and Isles proved transformative.
"The neighborhood came and worked with the city, and the little section was identified as space for city gardens," Vincent said.
What emerged was more than just a garden; it became a model for how grassroots organizing combined with organizational support could create lasting change.
For young Troy, these weren't abstract lessons about community development. As a teenager, he participated directly in the work.
"I was a young teenager, going out, learning how to pick asparagus, pop open black-eyed peas," Vincent said. "I'd sit on the step and grandma and grandpa would say, 'hey, shuffle these peas, pack them up, put them in the Ziploc bag, take them to the freezer.'"
The garden that began in 1983 expanded over the years, eventually growing to over an acre and partnering with Howell Living History Farm, a tradition that continues nearly 40 years later. Today, it serves as one node in Isles' network of over 50 community gardens, which collectively serve 250 families throughout Trenton and its surrounding communities.
The Vincents formalized their shared commitment to community service by establishing their philanthropic work in the early 1990s, initially as the Troy Vincent Foundation. However, some 23 years ago, they realized their vision extended beyond what a typical athlete foundation could accomplish. "Very quickly, I realized this journey was bigger and this extended outside of my name," Troy explained. "At the end of the day, this is about community service, community resources, community partnerships."
In June 2025, Tommi and Troy came full circle, donating a hydroponic GroShed to the same garden where Troy learned to "shuffle peas" as a teenager. The donation, made through their Love Thy Neighbor Community Development Corporation in partnership with Sport For Impact, will enable year-round seedling production for the broader garden network.
For Vincent, the donation represents continuity with the community values that shaped him.
"My grandfather and that whole group of men and families during that time, that's part of the community legacy that Tommi and I play a small role in, still trying to contribute to keep it vibrant," he said.
Both Troy and Tommi Vincent understand their role as part of a larger ecosystem. Their approach through Love Thy Neighbor emphasizes collaboration over charity. Troy is clear about their philosophy: "Tommi and I realized early on that we're not going to do it by ourselves, the community has to take a self-interest in itself," he said. "It's about collaboration and partnerships."
Vincent's perspective on community development has been shaped by decades of travel and success in professional sports, but his analysis always returns to the fundamental importance of local organizing. The solution, he believes, lies in the kind of sustained, community-centered work that Isles has pioneered. Vincent emphasizes that meaningful change requires "people in the community to not have a level of tolerance for certain things," combined with organizations that maintain "boots on the ground."
From the agricultural knowledge of sharecroppers to the hydroponic technology of the new GroShed, the Chestnut Avenue garden represents more than four decades of community persistence. It stands as testament to what becomes possible when resident leadership meets organizational support, when community vision is paired with what Vincent calls Isles' essential commitment to long-term change.
For Isles staff, the Vincent family's journey from garden participants to major supporters illustrates something profound about the organization's approach: true community development creates cycles of engagement that span generations, turning today's program participants into tomorrow's community leaders and philanthropic partners.
As the GroShed begins producing seedlings for gardens across the region, it carries forward both the agricultural wisdom of Jefferson Vincent's generation and the collaborative spirit that has defined Isles' work for more than four decades. In Troy Vincent's words, it represents the ongoing effort to ensure that every neighborhood has "some of the basic essentials for healthy families" -- starting with the fundamental human need for fresh, healthy food grown by and for the community itself.
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