 Hey everyone. Rob Greenfield here. And I'm Ashley Thomas from the Mocha Gardener. Today we are taking a trip to the city of Henderson, North Carolina in Vance County. Interestingly, Vance is one of the counties in North Carolina that has the highest rate of food insecurity, meaning approximately 17% of the population here does not have access to secure food or sufficient amounts of food for a healthy life. Driving through parts of the city you'll notice that food options are fairly limited and for areas that do have more food options affordability is often a major challenge to people getting the foods they need. So food access is defined as people's ability to access enough appropriate foods necessary for a nutritional diet. The aisles that we're walking through right now are typical of what a lot of people have as their access to food and not just here in Henderson but this is representative of many rural communities across the nation. You can survive off of this food. But nutritious food is what helps you to thrive. Today we are going to introduce you to a group that has a very different take on food from what you'll find here. They're just down the street here in Henderson and they are working to create greater food access in their community by turning their yard into a farm that distributes healthy food. All right Rob, let's go. All right so we're now here at the Green Rural Redevelopment Organization Grow in Henderson and this is a beautiful example of how we can create food security in our communities by growing food right in our own yards. Mr. and Mrs. Henry and Artist Cruz, the founders of Grow, are on a quest to revitalize their community one bite at a time starting with their own backyard. So here we have Ms. Cruz. Ms. Cruz, I have a question for you. What is access to nutritional foods like in Henderson? It is not easy. Believe me it is not easy. There are a lot of economic deficiencies here in Henderson and you really need a car to get where the grocery stores are. Even though they're grocery stores here quality is not always good and certainly in a place where people don't have cars, where they don't have jobs, it's really really hard to get good food. And one thing that I think is very important that people don't realize that in today's time people are no longer in contact with food. We're so used to everything being quick. We've forgotten how to cook food starting with me. I didn't know how to cook food. So that's something that we promote. So one of the really amazing things about Grow is that as we've mentioned you know what you can see here it looks like a farm and it is a farm but it was started right here in your yard. So what was your inspiration and your motivation to start right here? I think people need to know that wherever you are you can do a good thing and if you have a patio, if you have a driveway, if you've got some flowers around your house you can get rid of some flowers and instead of planting some of the things that you've done in the past just simply plant some vegetables because the best way to have food is to grow. As we started growing I had a realization that in fact when I look into my history and my ancestors the thing that I used to hear all the time was food is medicine. That's a going buzzword now but it was it is true and it was true. And you know this is you know so important as we look at utilizing spaces to grow food. I have to ask you one last question and that is you know why is it important for you to grow food right now in a city like this? It was very interesting when we started this in Henderson in North Carolina the agricultural south you didn't see what people termed as urban farming so it was important for people to know that wherever you are you can grow food and it was a way of utilizing empty lots around in the city and getting people involved. There's a lot of healing that comes from growing food. I can imagine mentally and physically. Yes ma'am. Thank you. Thank you. In the United States we don't actually have a food shortage as a nation as a whole but we do have inequitable access and distribution to food and to healthy food. Many neighborhoods have enough food but not healthy options and this is often referred to as a food swamp. Now you've probably heard the term food desert before but many people are starting to use a more appropriate term and that is food apartheid which was coined by food justice advocate Karen Washington. Now a food apartheid really speaks to the root of the systemic barriers that limit access to healthy foods for many people in our community. So now imagine if everywhere every community had something like grow and we did this in all of our communities across the nation. But we don't need an organization like grow to start now because we can start in our own backyard.