LISTEN: Students in the Gangstas to Growers program reflect what they've learned and how their lives have changed since joining the program. GPB's Amanda Andrews brings us this audio postcard.

Participants in Gangstas to Growers stand in the greenhouse at Phoenix Garden in Lawrenceville, GA.

G2G students and staff (from left to right) Jacario Wilson, Pele Ellis, Tarik Livingstone, Bridget Darby and Vasha McKinney pause for a photo at Phoenix Gardens in Lawrenceville, Ga.

Credit: Amanda Andrews / GPB News

Participants work to build a shed for workshops at Phoenix Gardens.

Gangstas to Growers participants help build a shed for workshops at Phoenix Gardens.

Credit: Amanda Andrews / GPB News

G2G Student Bridget Darby saws wood supports for a shed building project.

G2G student Bridget Darby saws wood supports for a shed building project.

Credit: Amanda Andrews / GPB News

G2G Farming Lead Pele Ellis directs students in building a shed.

G2G farming lead Pele Ellis directs students in building a shed.

Credit: Amanda Andrews / GPB News

The Gangstas to Growers (G2G) program is empowering young people in the Atlanta metro area through farm work. Participants are mostly at-risk or formerly incarcerated youths who receive job training, mentorship and even martial arts training.

The program trains and pays students who complete projects on Black-owned farms at no cost to the farmers. Graduation for students is happening this evening.

Vasha McKinney is one of those students graduating from Gangstas to Growers this year. She said everyone in the program has grown since the beginning.

“I'm feeling better than yesterday,” McKinney said. "It's hard to explain because, you know, if you're looking in the mirror every day, you can't see the change where everyone else can see around you. 

"When I first came in I felt like — not saying misguided, but it was a lot of things that I felt like I know I want to change, but I didn't know where to start,” she said.

The program is designed to end the cycle of poverty by equipping its students with career skills and education through agriculture. Participant Support Lead Tarik Livingstone said working with young Black people entering adulthood is important work.

“Some people in society are scared of these people or they just kind of throw them away,” Livingstone said. “They want to work with them before and after this, but not during this time period in their life.”

Students are also taught life skills through business, yoga, life coaching, and arts classes.

Jacario Wilson heard about the G2G program after his brothers completed it.

“They said it was a good program and I should do it; it would help my mental health and what I got going on to life, and it did,” Wilson said. “Since I got in the program, I ain’t really been getting mad how I used to. Like I normally cuss somebody out quick.”

After the program, Wilson plans to pursuit videography, not farming. But he still plans to use the skills he’s learned.

“I like doing everything with cameras and taking pictures and videos and editing videos and after the program, I'm going to pursue and just be a camera dude,” he said. “But I'm still going to grow plants. I'm still growing everything inside my house.”

Bridget Darby is another participant graduating from the program with a more clear sense of what she will do in the future.

“I believe that it was God that put me here," Darby said. "I did pray a lot. I asked for a lot of things that I got in the program. Even ongoing, continuing to my, you know, future plans, like everything is lined up exactly how I wanted it to be.”

Darby wants to continue doing work that will serve the community after graduation. Her future plans include a business that will build homes for people who are homeless or struggling and teach people how to build their own homes.

Darby said the most impactful part of the program for her has been learning martial arts.

“We're taught some self-defense strategies because a lot of people have people in their lives that are abusive," she said. "So we were taught how to defend ourselves.

"We also have fun with it. We had our capoeira instructor who's also our farm teacher, Pele. He's very beneficial to us.”

Farm Program Manager Pele Ellis has been practicing the Afro-Brazilian martial art of capoeira for 17 years. He said capoeira an important part of the way he teaches the students.

“We think of it as just this thing that's just a martial art," Ellis said, but "why do you need martial arts? You need to protect the community. Most of the capoeiristas never just did one thing. They were farmers. They were construction workers. They were textile workers.”

Students in this cohort chose Dec. 27, the second day of Kwanza, for their graduation. The second day of Kwanza focuses on the principle Kujichagulia, or self-determination, which is the principle that students chose to represent their time in G2G.

McKinney said as the program closes out students are optimistic about the future.

“I think everybody's headed on to what they want to do,” she said. “If they were questioning about their journey, I feel like everybody has clarity coming towards the end of the program, and I wish everybody nothing but the best. Hopefully we can all come together and do some things after the program to help the community."

Students will graduate from the program with a celebration at the Multi-Use Radical People’s Hall.

Tags: farming  Georgia  sustainable agriculture  youth development  urban agriculture