The Bronx’s Very Own Urban Farmer, Karen Young-Washington, Is In The Running For $10K Award

NationSwell, a digital media company which promotes intrepid individuals towards the betterment of our country, has selected our very own urban farmer Karen Young-Washington as a candidate for the 2015 NationSwell Allstar $10,000 award to further her projects—and she needs your help by VOTING for her which you can do daily!

Karen is the real deal, folks. When she speaks, people listen. She not only thirsts for knowledge but readily imparts the wisdom which she has accumulated over the years to inspire the next and future generations.

It’s people like Karen Young-Washington that we must and NEED to celebrate for these are the real success stories coming out from our borough. It’s not all about celebrities who leave but it’s about those who plant roots to make and build a difference.

Chris Peak at NationSwell writes of Karen:

“The first plant that changed my life was a tomato,” says Karen Washington, a black urban farmer in the Bronx. “It was the one fruit that I used to hate.” But after watching one that she’d grown shift in hue from green to yellow to red and taking a bite of it, she was instantly hooked. “When I tasted that tomato, when it was red and it was ripe, and I picked it off the vine, [it]…changed my world because I never tasted anything so good, so sweet. I wanted to grow everything.”

For a quarter century, all manner of trees and flowers, fruits and vegetables, have thrived across abandoned lots in the Bronx because of Washington. Deemed “the queen of urban farming,” she’s an African-American woman who’s dedicated her life to greening New York City’s poorest borough. Since 1985, Washington has assisted dozens of neighborhoods build their own community gardens, taught workshops on farming and promoted racial diversity in agriculture.” —Read more about this wonderful Bronxite and vote for her at ‘See the Seeds of Change Grown by One Bronx Woman‘

Watch Karen speak in her own words:

Read the rest over at NationSwell and please VOTE FOR KAREN!