“And this, this right here, is Morning Glory. See the purple around the leaf?” Ed questioned with a gruff voice.
I nodded as I saw it – the way one vine had a purplish tinge around its petioles while the other did not. So together, Ed and I pruned back the invasive Morning Glory to leave room for our pole beans to grow. Ed and I met through being volunteers at our local Plant-A-Row for the Hungry (PAR) Garden. This community garden and chicken farm donate the proceeds to local families in need. I, along with my fellow gardeners who are all retirees, work two to four hours there about five times each week. Most days, I met my buddy Ed, a surprisingly techy 70-year-old. On other days, I met Bill, a retired professor. My favorite days included Susan, a proud grandmother of brilliant young Einsteins who taught me to become a chicken tender, caring for a broody flock of hens. Through my mornings with Ed, Bill, and Susan, I learned how to care for my own garden and my community.
While teaching me how to propagate Sweet Potatoes, Ed told me about his past. When he was around my age, he went to college – and then subsequently dropped out, he said. We talked about politics often, and he would tell me about how things have changed in recent times. His explanations for the increasing polarization of Americans and decreasing power of the EPA to protect us from climate change have stuck with me since.
The PAR Garden won the SC Governor’s Volunteer Group of the Year award in 2021 for our donation of thousands of pounds of produce and eggs to local community shelters.
“No Justice, No Peace. No Justice, No Sleep,” I resolutely chanted at 3 A.M.
To either side of me were people holding banners in Sunrise Yellow and Black adorned with similar phrases to the ones I chanted. We stopped our march through a dark and eerily silent neighborhood at a specific house: the house of Senator Thom Tillis. I became a member of the Sunrise Movement, a youth-led Environmental Justice organization, around the same time I joined the PAR Garden Team. I moved up through the ranks quickly, joining the leadership team in a matter of months. But, the organizations could not be more different. While the PAR Garden quietly makes an impact on the local community, regardless of politics or beliefs, the Sunrise Movement was aggressively political.
The action against Thom Tillis was one of many in a nationwide campaign organized by the Sunrise Movement.
“It’s a bit morbid, but we sometimes call ourselves Chicken Tenders,” Susan chuckled.
Susan was the leader of the PAR garden. This meant that she handled everything from deciding what crops to plant to sending out weekly emails to volunteers. But, most importantly, she taught me how to care for my feathered friends. I learned how to feed them, clean their coop, and gather eggs. Throughout my time in the garden, the chickens surprised me with their scrappiness. They love their berries and worms, but they will eat anything, even garbage, to survive. I admired their resourcefulness. Watching the chickens inspired me to be more resourceful by making the most of the opportunities available to me and setting up my own garden at home.
In addition to teaching me about the joys of chickens, Susan taught me about Zinnias. Zinnias are different from some types of flowering plants in that they need to be constantly pruned to reach their full potential. Pruning means the difference between a Zinnia with a single flower and one with over twenty flowers. Cutting back flowers at a certain time results in exponential growth. This careful attention to detail in pruning a Zinnia, and the resilience of the plant itself has stuck with me. The action of pruning a Zinnia reminded me of the importance of doing away with ideas that do not work in favor of new ones.
“Socialist thugs harassing my brother and my sister in law at their home. Never mind the neighbors,” Rick Tillis declared on Twitter.
Sunrise emphasized the importance of polarizing actions in drawing attention to Environmental Justice issues. The hope is that in dividing people, the environmental movement attains more dedicated supporters. But, it also has the opposite effect. Throughout my time working with Sunrise, I have been called a variety of things – one of my favorite being “socialist thug” by Senator Tillis’s brother. As a People’s-Alignment Lead for Sunrise Movement, I attended trainings on my rights while protesting, how to legally organize a protest, and ways to frame arguments for sustainability. I stepped out of my comfort zone: phone banking, drafting op-eds, tabling at political events, and even helping lead the Wide Awake action against Senator Thom Tillis. While the PAR garden taught me the more technical parts of sustainability and the different opinions surrounding it, Sunrise taught me how to hone an argument and speak persuasively.
My experiences with the PAR Garden and the Sunrise Movement have intertwined and shaped the way I view sustainability today. Sunrise has taught me how to be a powerful tool in fighting for a more sustainable future and has given me knowledge in knowing the pros and cons of approaches to environmental activism. The PAR Garden, on the other hand, has given me the background knowledge and maturity needed to engage a wider audience on sustainability. Today, I see the climate debate like a patch of pole beans infested with morning glory. For pole beans to thrive and bear produce, the morning glory must be pruned away. It is the job of those interested in a more equitable and sustainable future to prune away at harmful narratives and policies. In doing so, we allow more room for sprouting climate ideas to form. In this way, we can foster a better climate future.
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