Clarkston Gardner Helps Youth Players Stay Engaged
As part of a summer project, the Clarkston youth players have worked with a community gardener, Ralph MacDonald, to utilize space in their field by turning it into a vibrant garden. Five of the youth players have been visiting the garden weekly to work on keeping the vegetables in great shape. This project has been a special one as the players have been anxious to get back out to play but know that they can actively engage in other projects in the meantime.
Left: Clarkston Youth Players Right: Ralph MacDonald
Let’s take a look at who Ralph MacDonald is and what this garden means to him:
Ralph: “My name is Ralph MacDonald and I am an advocate for good food and local farming. Over the past six years, I have worked as a landscaper, grant writer, program coordinator, urban agriculture researcher, farmers’ market manager, board member, and farmer. A lot of those roles have been held twice, many have been held simultaneously, and those are just my farm-related jobs. Labor-intensive farming, the kind needed to harvest fruits and vegetables as you see here in the garden, is not a financially rewarding enterprise in America, and the economic disincentives to maintain small farms has left our country unable to grow enough healthy produce to feed ourselves. Because the flaws of our food system are far removed from our grocery shelves, these problems are hardly visible.”
Why do you like to build gardens?
“I like to build gardens because I want to try to expose as many people to growing food as possible--it provides perspective on the labor that goes into our groceries, feeling love for your plants, a chance to eat the food off the vine and tasting a big difference, an opportunity to grow and share food with a friend. It’s highly rewarding work, and watching the positive personal development of my peers in the food movement sustains and motivates me.”
Youth Players working in garden
How can building a garden help the youth players during this time?
“It’s hard to capture one reason to grow food. There are virtually limitless positive feedback loops on growing and eating healthy local food: on our health and healthcare system, on our performance in jobs and schools, in maintaining a sustainable ecosystem, and on building the social bonds that help tie us together. Children (and adults) who grow food will virtually always eat the food, regardless of their past dietary habits, making an enormous impact on healthcare--85% of pre-COVID medical costs were associated with a diet-related chronic illness like heart disease, obesity, and diabetes. The regenerative nature of organic agriculture allows us to create valuable produce year after year while sustaining a healthier environment. Children and young adults who garden have access to a litany of practical botany concepts, use algebra, and spend time coordinating work with rewarding results. With schools, employment, climate crisis, communities, and our healthcare systems all under enormous strain, we need access to gardens and farming spaces more than ever to build up community resilience and bonding.”
What does this specific project mean to you?
“I’m very grateful to the Clarkston Program Manager, Toussaint McClure, for bringing me out to start these gardens up. I’ve known Toussaint for almost 25 years and it’s amazing to be working with him again as adults. 25 years ago, his father came in to teach our class about Civil Rights and my mom came in to teach about environmentalism--now we’re together again on a project that ties into both and will be advancing that education to the next generation of young people.”
It’s important to keep our fields a vibrant space for all the youth players. We are thankful for the opportunity to have Ralph and Toussaint work with the kids on this amazing project out at the Clarkston field!
If you'd like to get involved in this project email toussaint@soccerstreets.org or make a donation here to help provide more opportunities like this to even more kids in our programs!
