Minding My Business: Our Mothers' Gardens

"won't you celebrate with me

what i have shaped into

a kind of life?

... come celebrate

with me that everyday

something has tried to kill me

and has failed."

- Lucille Clifton

​This August, I turn 40, a milestone in my life that I want to mark by finally becoming a business owner/operator.

As a working-class black woman and single parent, entrepreneurship has often been an act of survival.

For years, racism, sexism and classism have made it difficult for me to get and keep jobs with a living wage, because Black women are consistently underpaid, overworked, and overlooked for professional advancements.

When I found myself under and unemployed, I used my ingenuity, skill and relationships to pursue and attain freelance and contract work to make ends meet.

Now, it’s time for me to create a workplace for myself — and hopefully others! — where we are free to express our ideas, design our environment, organize our resources, operationalize our values and cultivate collaborations that will empower us not just to survive, but to thrive.

Over the last five years, I've participated in classes, workshops, trainings and apprenticeships that amplified my ability to grow organic produce, manage farm operations and steward land.

I’ve also worked at farms and community gardens, restaurants, a grocery store and environmental conservation organizations to better understand local and regional food systems.

In February 2023, I’ll launch Our Mothers' Gardens, a micro farm that will grow culinary herbs, vegetables and seeds for sale to restaurants and food producers in Portland, OR.

Living wages for workers are essential to operating businesses with integrity. Although launching a business is often an expensive endeavor, the cost of labor is worth every dollar and cent.

Especially when the history of agriculture is inextricably tied to the enslavement of people of African descent. The unpaid physical, intellectual and emotional labor of my ancestors — their literal blood, sweat and tears — saturates the soil of this nation.

With the launch of my micro farm, I intend to tend the fertile ground they cultivated for us as a celebration of their genius and perseverance, and as a practice to transform their pain.

Join the celebration by funding my labor during the first growing season of Our Mothers Gardens.

Learn more about Our Mothers' Gardens at earthseedyoga.com/ourmothersgardens.

#BlackBusinessGrant