Lauren Brazile dragged a garden rake through the dust outside the Slauson Super Mall, gathering leaf litter and old chip bags into a small pile.
“See all this? All I have to do is pick the trash out,” she said sunnily. The leftover dirt and leaf scraps, she reasoned, would make a perfect base layer for a garden bed.
If you’ve noticed a recent change to the patch of dirt in front of the iconic South LA swap meet, it’s because Brazile, the founder of nonprofit We Grow LA, and a team of volunteers have been slowly converting the roughly landscaped area into a vegetable garden.
“It was a lot of shrubbery and weeds and things. We just figured, why not make something out of nothing?” Brazile said, adding that she is targeting an official opening for the garden on June 13.
We Grow LA plans to plant the garden with edible crops — from tomatoes and peppers to rosemary and dill — and set up a small farm stand for passers-by to pick up produce. Brazile hopes the small patch of land will also help supply the nonprofit’s already-existing weekly food program.
Brazile said the importance of food resources became clear the Friday after the federal government shutdown in the fall, when more than 450 people showed up to the giveaway.
“It was very clear that this is something that we need,” Brazile said.
We Grow LA has done weekly grocery giveaways at the Slauson Super Mall for two years now, offering fresh vegetables and other goods starting at 11 a.m. every Friday. The nonprofit has branches in Inglewood and Long Beach and runs six food giveaway programs across the county.
Cali Grimes, one of the volunteers helping to run the program at the swap meet, said We Grow LA feeds hundreds of families every week. The program, she said, is a sterling example of South Central coming together as a community.
“We are all one big family,” she said. “We’re going to have ups and downs, but we all take care of each other.”
Brazile said it’s been a few years since she came up with the idea of turning the decorative garden bed into edible plants. The swap meet’s owners, she said, have become used to her strange ideas after seeing the success of the grocery giveaway.
“They’re like ‘whatever, just do what you do and let us know when it’s time to come see it,’” Brazile said.
Brazile and whatever volunteers happen to show up each week have been picking away at the garden project a few hours at a time, whenever the food service at the other end of the swap meet parking lot can spare a few hands.
On a recent Friday, a team of three hung green netting along the metal fence to stop more trash from blowing into the garden. Brielle Cummings Jordan worked to piece together a tomato trellis in a moveable growbox, chosen just in case We Grow LA ever has to relocate the operation.
“It’s refreshing, it didn’t always look all pretty as it is right now,” Cummings Jordan said, surveying the group’s progress on the garden.
The South LA native used to buy shoes at the swap meet as a child. She lives in Victorville now, but dropped by to help with the garden for a few hours before she visited her grandmother.
“Growing up in this area, just to see a healthier environment, that’s what’s cool about it,” she said.
Those interested in volunteering with We Grow LA’s giveaway program or garden can contact Brazile at lauren@wegrowla.com.
