Junior's HOPE garden to help the homeless

David Baron works at HOPE Garden, a social entrepreneurship project he started as student at the Kenan-Flagler Business School.

While other students attempt to absorb the lectures of their morning classes, would-be junior David Baron is likely to be digging waist-deep in a pile of mulch or hacking away at roots with a pickaxe.

Baron chose to take a year off UNC to found an urban garden which socializes and transitions homeless people into the job market.

“I’m enjoying seeing the progress. Looking back to see how far it’s come will be very rewarding,” Baron said.

The community garden, called HOPE Garden, is part of the Campus Y Homeless Outreach and Poverty Eradication committee, which Baron joined his freshman year.

“HOPE is an immediate cause,” he explained. “(You) work directly with the people you’re serving.”

After spending the summer before his sophomore year working with farmers in Tanzania, Baron had the idea to employ Chapel Hill’s homeless in seed production for those farming communities.

But when he entered professor Jim Johnson’s social ventures class in the Kenan-Flagler Business School, his idea turned into a community garden and transitional job opportunity for Chapel Hill’s homeless.

“By focusing on something right in front of you, your service is more effective,” Baron said of his departure from the seed idea. “It’s a more sustainable process.”

The process has been long. It took Baron a semester to acquire the 14 acres leased to HOPE by the town of Chapel Hill.

Baron’s next step is to develop the land to include a vegetable and herb garden, 25 plots leased to community members, a fruit orchard and a flower meadow.

“It’s important that the community accept it and see it as a place they want to come that’s aesthetic as well as productive,” he said.

The 25 plots will be leased to community members for $100 a year, which will fund supplies and wages for the homeless participants.

“They’re not getting paid at this point,” he said. “They’ve guided us through construction, and we’ve given them a safe haven to come during the day.”

Baron said some at the Inter-Faith Council for Social Service, a homeless shelter in Carrboro, could have trouble moving on. The garden serves as a halfway point to move people back into employment.

“When you’re worrying about where you’re going to get your next meal, a bed, it’s hard to think about work,” he said.

Garrett, a homeless participant who wouldn’t give his last name for personal reasons, is a man of about 60 with an economics degree.

Baron calls him ‘the agricultural guru’ because he has worked in agriculture in Latin America.

“It keeps me from going crazy,” Garrett said of the garden. “In this economy, it’s pretty frustrating with my education and my experience. I can’t find a damn job.”

Baron described the transitional employment process as an exchange of ideas between two societal groups that tend to be separated by stereotype.

“We hope to bring in volunteers and socialize the homeless people, break down those barriers — encourage meaningful discussion on both sides to give people ideas on how to alleviate poverty,” he said.

Eventually, the garden’s produce will be sold at farmers’ markets and on campus.

Johnson, the professor who helped Baron solidify the garden’s plan, still remains supportive.

“It’s an awesome project,” he said. “It’s consistent with the notion of creating a sustainable urban community. And he tied it to eradicating homelessness, which is even more impressive.”

Johnson said he has watched many young entrepreneurs implement ideas like Baron’s.

“These folks truly believe they can change the world.”

Baron will eventually graduate and the grants will run out. But he said he hopes the leadership can be passed on to the community that inspired it.

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