Summer Series | S1 Episode 3 - Dishaun Harris, Founder of rootlife.org

☀️ Third episode of the special curated Summer Series of Do The “_” Thing Podcast: Capital Meets Impact. 🌻 

 I sit down with Dishaun Harris, founder of RootLife.org, for a deeply rooted conversation about food, land, health, community, and what it means to build impact from within.

So far in this Summer series, we have explored capital through fundraising, profit-with-purpose entrepreneurship, and investment. 

In this episode, Dishaun expands the conversation in a deeply necessary way by reminding us that capital is not only money. Capital can also be food, land, trust, community wisdom, local labor, cultural knowledge, and the infrastructure that allows a community to feed, heal, and sustain itself.

Dishaun is a food systems entrepreneur and community-rooted infrastructure builder working at the intersection of food justice, health, land access, and local economic resilience.

Born and raised in New Haven, Connecticut, Dishaun began noticing a painful pattern in his community: people he loved were passing away from diet-related illnesses, yet these losses were often overlooked or treated as isolated tragedies. Through his lived experience, community relationships, and growing understanding of public health and food systems, he began asking a different question: What would it look like to rebuild health, food access, and local power from the ground up?

Through RootLife.org, Dishaun is not simply growing food. He is helping create community infrastructure — gardens, education, local food systems, value-added products, healing spaces, youth engagement, and pathways for people to reconnect with the land and with one another.

In this conversation, we explore:

• How grassroots work often begins before formal structures arrive
• Why community ownership matters in food, health, and social entrepreneurship
• The connection between land access, health disparities, systemic racism, and capital
• Why Dishaun sees agriculture as both survival and superpower
• How documenting authentic work can attract the right kind of support
• What it means to build infrastructure where money, skills, food, and care circulate within the community

Dishaun reminds us that impact is not always about becoming the hero of a community. Sometimes, it is about helping create the conditions where everyone can grow, contribute, feed one another, and build something that lasts.

RootLife.org is a beautiful example of what happens when lived experience, ancestral wisdom, systems thinking, and community care come together.

Sometimes the purpose we’re called to do begins long before we know how to name it.

Transcript

Sheela 0:00

Dishaun, thank you for carving out uh your time to sit with me. So for our conversation today, I want to look at the human journey behind the mission. So to start us off, I would love to take you back to the very beginning. Was there a specific moment or experience where you first noticed a need in your community that stayed with you and ultimately guided your journey toward rootlife.org? Yes.

Dishaun 0:34

So uh noticing the need, that's an interesting way of putting one of those moments. So I guess the noticing the need moment was when I came home from college, uh, born and raised in New Haven, Connecticut. So when I came back home, and it started to be like a lot of people passing away from diet-related illnesses. At the time, I didn't know they were diet-related illnesses, but I ended up working for Yellow University, that's just like a job, but being a canvaser for the School of Public Health, and so I was getting a lot of insight from them just about you know public health in general and a lot of diet-related theses and the reality of those things, but also insight from like everybody in the city, because that was our job to knock on doors. But I was really good at it. And so getting like a lot of quantitative data, of course, that was our job, the qualitative data to get the quantitative data that I was getting from people just telling their stories and their lives and how they're being affected and impacting this during the recession. I started to realize how uh real of an issue health disparity was in our community. Because I come from an inner city, known, you know, nationally known for the wrong reasons, you know, around crime and murder and things like that. And to be honest, I've seen way more people dash away in my life from just diet-related things, and we just like kind of go off the road, just like, you know, something random or something weird. Who knows what happened? Oh, if they just, you know, fell out one day, and it's like, you know, that it never gets over like talked about like somebody who may have gotten shot or something like that, you know, that gets sensationalized and things like that. So I, you know, got tired of going to funerals of people that I love. And so I decided that it would be a good thing to um try to address these things as I'm learning from like scholarly sources that you know they can be a lot of these things can be reversed or prevented. We're just eating right. And a lot of the things that were required of eating right, me coming from the family that I come from, my grandmother grew up on a farm in in Virginia. It's like, oh, these are things that you actually grow on the farm, like you know what I mean, and like things we could grow ourselves. So that kind of like sparked the idea of like, how can I like address these issues in the community in a real way? Because I also did my research, it started going to local programs from nonprofits that were already active in the city, but none of them were really like rooted in community, even though they have to be, if that makes sense. But it was just like a bunch of outsiders coming through, basically trying to tell us how we should live our lives and getting way too much money for their salaries, while the actual money to go towards the projects in our communities were like a fraction of that, and not seeing that until I got into the space as well, right? Like, and seeing that over the years, oh, that's how it really works. But having to navigate this without being aware of it, but knowing that something was off and something was wrong, and that's all I needed. I did some research, like, where can I find you know farms like nearby? I didn't think I was gonna be able to find any in the city, but there were like a four or five of them. When I just went and I like stuck my head down, like you know what I mean, and just decided that I'd do whatever I needed to do to learn everything I could to bring it back to the community because all these spaces were definitely not of community or owned or stewarded by people from the community, and it was like, but they're right smack dab in the middle of our communities, so much so that a lot of like there was one in my community. I grew up in my community everywhere, walked everywhere, walked by this place a million times, didn't realize it was there. Like it was like because there's no real connection piece. And so that really just sparked me to be like, okay, we can do this. Agriculture is something that you don't really need a lot of gatekeeping just to get into. You don't have to go through a lot of like certifications and things like that. Oh, and it's that's like very important, and it's a foundation for just about every other trade as far as materials and resources go. So it was just like very important to get to that and get back to that.

Sheela 4:39

Thank you, Dishan, for sharing that. Uh, it came from your heart, um, especially this commitment to rootlife.org. Beautiful. Actually, going forward from there in my work, I'm committed to looking closely at what happens before the institutional structures take over, focusing on the true agency of grassroots leaders. I'm building a framework to map out how profound the local impact actually begins. And root life that you are founder of is doing such a vital rooted work. How did the early stages look like? Yeah. Um, especially when there is no structure and support was presented to you.

Dishaun 5:28

Yeah, so in my journey, and in my journey similar to a lot of people who are coming from underserved communities throughout the country, actually. When I started to the time frame when I started, like agriculture was not popular at all. People didn't know anything about the food system. I didn't even know anything about like how things get distributed, like where they're coming from. I knew it was like farm stuff, but not like the real mechanics of the farm industry and all the like different people who contribute to getting into the grocery store in front of you and everything that's required for that. And so starting out is like you don't know any of that. You don't know if you're gonna be able to make booth money to survive. It's more so of like reconnecting to a superpower almost when it comes to agriculture. It's like, yo, I can actually feed myself, which is huge, and people often overlook that, depending on your environment. It's like, oh, but I can only do it for like six months or four months. Like, but it's like you can actually, if you take the time to really think about it, you can feed yourself year-round, and which will give you more free time to not have to work to pay for food that's overpriced, right? So it balances out, but there isn't an initial investment of the change and you know, just like waiting for stuff to grow and produce to happen. Another big piece, especially like in underserved communities, particularly, especially urban underserved communities, even more so, is land access for everybody, not just for certain people of color and things like that. It's like everybody, because gentrification is a real thing, and everybody wants to create these big machine politics type energy. I wouldn't score political science, so I'm familiar with these types of groups that have happened throughout history, and it's the same energy, like politics is a real thing. And so, just the reality of understanding all that, it was hard, but there were people in little pockets, which is all I needed at the time, like you know what I mean, based on my skill set and my available resources to even implement things, that invited me over. They may have worked with the city or work and got these little, you know, things to work on. So I started helping people build out community gardens from scratch, and this that and the third, because I had the expertise, and that turned into people seeing that love, and you know, we were building community off of that. And now people, you know, a year later, season later, they're like, Oh, like, you know, I work for solo, so I work for you, I work for here, and there's like funding, like you know what I mean. Like, you know, there's like a grant that we got for five million dollars, and there's like twenty thousand dollars of this money because discretionary funds, and we want to like contribute it to the community garden space and like make sure you get paid to show up and teach us every day, and like you know, let's have a cooking demonstration, let's build community around the agriculture piece, that's the education piece, like these types of things that seemed out of reach at first, but they just like over the years, super opportunities. Even people are like, Here, we have a youth program and we want you to build a garden and teach our kids how to grow because we believe in it, and it's all it takes is one person, you know. These people look like me and they come from the same community that I come from, so they're invested, like you know, because I'm teaching their nephews and nieces and my nephews and nieces and my classmates' nephews and nieces and things like that. And so these things just have been like randomly on the go. I'm learning as I go to coming starting off with skills after I learned everything. But even while I was training at these spaces that were not of us, I was given opportunities to do like nature schooling and homeschooling for extra money, and it was like it was all easy work, like done even for me because I'm a nature person. So, like I would farm here in the day, and then they're in the afternoon and evening, I would do like after school programming or homeschooling or whatever they would fire, summer can't whatever. And it would just tie in all these different things, so get building up all those skill sets. So now I'm coming back to the community with all these skill sets. I'm teaching them how to look at the endlines and look at the weeds, and we're trying stuff for real and those types of things. And now I've helped build out a workforce over the 10 years unintentionally, just like showing up every day, and like you ask me questions and me just being so excited to answer them. And by the way, let's learn together. I can show you my strategy of first research goals, right? So all these things are to add up, and of course, me being from the community that I serve and having like you know, thousands of connections already before I even started agriculture. Like, you know, between me and my family, like, you know, I come from a big family, and my father's side is like 400 people in the city, or my mother's side is more like close to 100 in the city and the county area of the city. But we all were born and raised here, and then they all have friends that they grew up with and whole family, like, you know, tribes will look at it from an outside looking in there. We don't look at it, you know, being in there. But it's like literally tribes, like you know what I mean, like that are still intact. Family, bloodline tribes, you know. I'm serving when I'm moving around. So somebody might know my grandmother from the church, like you know, and they're like, Well, make sure he gets selected and make sure he gets the funding and make sure we're supporting him, go buy the food from him, like you know what I mean. Like that type of energy really started to spark off. So it's really grassroots energy. I'm just starting to get to like the other side of it, which but it's still grassroots, but like people starting to recognize me outside of like grassroots energy, and like, yeah, there's an opportunity for a couple million dollars to build our infrastructure, like a commercial kitchen space or something like that for the community. Like these opportunities are gonna happen, but it's because of the constant work. And another thing that I really want to say, because I did it intentionally, it's another passion of mine um that I've been doing longer than agriculture. Is I intentionally, when I started in like 2010-ish, um I knew that I wanted to document everything, photos and videos, little quick clips, like just this highlight commercials. So I did that for like the last 15 years, like consistently. And so now it's like money finds me and resources and help. Like people calling me, like, yo, we got 40 kids, we need to, you know, come through every other week. You know, that's our manpower. Like, you know, they come up for three hours, 40 times three, that's 120 hours of labor that I will pay barely to somebody $25 for. Like, you know, so it's like these little things add up to the point where I can manage like four or five farm spaces in the city pretty much by myself, but like, you know, with the help, the random help that comes every once in a while and make it work and grow to like support and train people and you know, give away a lot of food, you know, strategically now, now that we have infrastructure, right? We have full pantry infrastructure. Because before I come from a community where it's just like, yo, we're going our own cabinets and be a fool pantry today. Like there's no business around it, none of that. It's just like blessing energy. But it's like we could be getting money, still doing that in full control, and that type of infrastructure is like where we're moving towards. But again, starting out, you don't get any of that. It's just like get your face down, get your name out there, keep showing up, doing what you're doing, be in community, share food in the community. And people will want more and more and more of that. It's therapy. It's so much therapy. So many people have been like, it's church every time we come every week to the thing. It's just like it feels so good. I can just not worry about the outside stuff. We're getting our hands in the soil, which is proven therapeutic with the bacteria that gets out of your nails and things like that. You're in fresh air, you might not be in fresh air all week long, but a lot of people are working offices and stuff. They're learning as you go, you're getting that wisdom from nature that we've bought as a culture in Western society, like every other culture, like has some type of connection to nature and the wisdom of it, the understanding of it, like, and they build life around it. Like westernized civilizations do not. Um, we're always at war with nature, which is crazy. And so, like, really just people, but people inherently understand that that's not what it is. So when they get a space and they feel that it's just like, oh, I'm bringing my kids, it's so much fun. Oh, it's over already, we're staying over the hours, like that type of energy. And then again, people work places, people have connections that you don't even know they have, or they may come across the connection randomly. Like, do you anybody with community girl? Actually, we do, man. Yeah, like so. Again, those types of energies are very important. And again, we invite everybody in. Some of my most memorable moments where like the people who are homeless are passing by and walking by, and they're comfortable enough because they see who's in the room to say hi. But I'm like, no, come in, like, come get a plate. We got food, we got a real chef here today. Like, and they're coming and they're eating, we're just talking. We understand everything, so it's like, as long as we're respectful, like we're good. Like, you know what I mean? Like, everybody's gonna invite you to come back, and even that type of energy, where it's like, we don't have to worry about our stuff being stolen that night. Because the people who are out there are investing in us, like pass this one by, like, you know what I mean? They feed us, like, you know, that type of energy. It is not intentional, but it's like that's just what happens when people feel like they're heard in their scene and they are part of a community, they protect the community. I think a lot of the stuff that's happening around like community being like vandalized and things like that is because they don't feel like they're part of the community anymore, like you know, so that type of energy, and I know I bear it overlap on that question, but things to look out for you when you're first standing out. But now it's a little easier because of the thing, like you know what I mean. Like, I'm getting interviewed about this type of stuff, right? So it's like it's actually a thing, you know, it was a thing like in California and certain places before, but now it's like that type of energy is everywhere now. So it's like you have people who are willing to jump on board with you as far as working and getting work done, like and being professional in the industry as well, being farmers as well. But then you also have people who are just aware of like this is what's actually needed, like the times are calling for us to be able to have a they don't really know the what they're talking about, but they know like oh yeah, we need local food source energy, and like that gives it me a gateway to be like, okay, let's talk about it then. Like, that I mean this is actually how that that needs to look for the us to produce and do all the things and uh create green jobs and all that type of stuff. But people are ready, people have they're ready, like, yeah. So that type of energy um is is prevalent right now. So now it's the best time ever to get into agriculture because everybody's looking for help and people are paying like top dollar because people are dying, and so it's like you know, um, not try not saying that they should get over on people, but I mean like if you do create a tincture that's actually worth $100 because of the medicinal properties, people will buy it. Like you know what I mean. Like now, if you're trying to charge a $100 for $20 tincture, that's different. But if it's like something that's really yielding with those, but it costs that much to make, people are buying these things like literally, and people are like whole industries of like just stepping into that. So be encouraged if you're interested in that. Look up your local people first, um, see how you can get in. Understand that you may have a grand vision, but it's not all about you when it comes to community. So learning how to be around people and like accept people for who they are. Everybody looks for like if they see somebody that's doing something they want to do, they automatically put them in like a spiritual leader role or Jesus role, I would say. Like, you know, come from the community I come from. It's like you're expecting me to be perfect, it's because I decided to like take a step forward. It's like, no, I took the step forward because I see that it was valuable, but I'm not the perfect farmer, I'm not the perfect this. But it's like when we come together, that's where we start seeing perfect systems, like if that makes sense. Um, and it's like understanding that. So when you go and you're gonna be learning from a farmer, they may not be your cup of tea, but they may have all the skill sets you need. And it's like you'll be okay knowing that, like, just accept people for where they are. Like, don't try to make it oh, but I had this vision where everybody should be this and we should be moving this way, and all these different politics and like, can we feed people first? Can we make sure that the like before we start even acting like we more than what we are? Can we just get the food situation out first? So that type of energy is like, you know, nothing's gonna be perfect. Don't be discouraged just because like you might have a bad day, like you know, God has blessed me, like the community has blessed me. So, like that type of energy, like you're always gonna come across opposition and things like that. People don't get it, people who think they can do something better, people who think they can do what you're doing better from sitting on the couch. It's like ignore all that and like trust in the ancestors that are speaking through you to even take these actions and take those actions and trust that they are seeing you, they will bless you in ways that you can't even fathom, but are that everything that you need, like you know, indeed. So that type of energy.

Sheela 17:40

Beautiful, Dishan for Sharing. You have identified the intersections between the capital and the community, your own passion, and how the basic needs being met, the beautiful therapy. Yeah, it's an elevation from one basic need to a completely different zone of human life, right? And also you kept bringing the community into conversation here because that is where this need was, and also that is where the support will be coming. Rootlife.org, that's your foundational organization, encapsulates it. Uh, but at the same time, you have done that effort. You know, you could have concentrated only on a couple of things, yeah. Community involving the youth, but you touched on a lot of areas that are important in human life, yes, and it's important to this work doesn't work without community.

Dishaun 18:47

Like a lot of people think that it can. Like you can get rich, you can be a capitalist, like you know what I mean, like and extract from community. But I actually like my goal is not to be a successful entrepreneur, that's that's an achievement for certain, but it's to create the industry for people to happen, whether that's growing, whether that's selling, whether that's educating, whether that's cooking, whether that's being a distributor, driving the trucks. We have all these people already who do these things for other people. It's like aggregating all that to create infrastructure for ourselves so that money circulates before it leaves. And that circulation is energy, and it just keeps energizing the systems that we are putting into place to help heal our communities. And so it's like agriculture is a foundation, of course. Everybody has to eat, right? And a lot of products come from agricultural products, if that makes sense, even the stuff you don't think, like you know what I mean. Like, so it's like there's a lot of that, but also the whole point is like I don't I tell people this a lot, and sometimes it throws people off. I'm like, I do not want to be here's local neighborhood farmer. I don't want to be a far, I don't want to be anybody's farmer. Like, I am in the moment because it's necessary. I want everybody to be able to grow their own food and barter for other people. So if you didn't grow corn this year, somebody else did, you can bar your tomatoes with them. And the food, like, I don't want people to have to be dependent on buying food. Like, you know, for right now, okay, I get it. Like, you know, we need access. But it's like once everybody starts growing their food again, it's like, yes, I don't, I don't want to be the only dependent farmer. It's like, yo, we have somebody over here with 400 acres, somebody over here with 400 acres, and it's employing so many people working on 400 acres that are from our community, and like you can leverage that. And also, we have a home garden established as a thing, like you know, like how it used to be. All these types of things that are important because the real money and this stuff is like the value-added product energy. To be honest, if you're farming, like, yeah, you're trying to sell your produce. If you got people who are gonna buy it from you because they got money, like in wholesale, that's different. But when you create your value-added products, make your own hot sauce, make your own pasta sauce, make your own hummus, make your own whatever, like make it and sell it because that's the up charge. And it's like people, it's real fair pricing, but it's like you can make a lot of money off of like the specialty, and that's also special because of like my mother's special salad dressing. It just hits different because of the energy that's in that and the history and just the uniqueness and the cultural relevance of that. You're not gonna find that in a grocery store, all the other options, like you know what I mean. So, those are the type of things that we need to be focused on that requires infrastructure, which we're building out more like large-scale commercial kitchen spaces, processing equipment, packaging equipment, that type of energy. So, we recently got like a quarter million dollar grant to start some of that for the state for our people around the state. And so, we've been doing that, you know. Now we can freeze dry products and keep quality at the highest price and not have to waste anything, have stuff on a shelf life for like years that would have to be sold in a couple of weeks, and that's stress. It's like now we actually are building up in a different way, and so like all of that is important, but without community, none of this makes sense. Like, and that's the whole part of social entrepreneurship, right? But for Real, like the we need to be beautifully said.

Sheela 22:04

Um, thank you for sharing all that. It is incredible that you survived and held that unstructured space. So looking at where root life is today, how did you begin to shape that raw energy into the actual framework and model you use now from the beginning to till now? What's the evolution of the structure?

Dishaun 22:30

Good question. So a few things. One experience, like you know, trying different things out for a long time. Like each year would be different. Like I focus one year mainly on programming, one year mainly on growing part of the market, one year mainly growing feedlings, one like you know, one year mainly on microgreens, specialty crop type energy, and seeing what worked and what didn't and what was ready, and filling out the vibe of like you know, COVID time and the big boobs, like you know what I mean, and just like filling out those vibes. Um, also blending out the network and the connections with people who see me do the work, I work for them. It might have been like a five-bed garden, but I did it and it made it work with five beds, and they're like, Well, what can you do with five hundred? Like, you know, that type of energy. People just knowing I move around like this, even in the office space. Like, you know, I'm the farmer, like I'm coming in like fresh out the fields, but I know exactly what I'm talking about. And then that's the last piece is community helping with this like mentor energy without me even asking around business and things like that, and how to navigate key words, terms, and things like that. And then also the self-development piece where it's just like I'm always trying to do better. And now with live technology, particularly AI, for the right reasons, the research that I'm able to do and the barriers that I'm able to hop over, you know, like I got this sort of thing, I gotta make sure all this is right. And it's like having that checklist makes everything so much easier than having to like do a 10-step process and having to literally spend 10 weeks trying to figure out each step from people in the network trying to, you know, give me the insight or whatever. Now you're like, no, it's just straightforward. And I've been actually implementing a lot of stuff in that mode, and the level up is crazy. People that I started community guards that are full-fledged gardeners now, 10 years in, right? We're in our 10-year anniversary, and they full-fledged gardeners and farmers, they running policy councils in the city and things like that, like very much aware, like these we've all thrown into these positions, and we've all loved on each other enough to for us to stick in these avenues for so long. And so um, we've been able to sift out the people who were just there for the theatrics, for the drama. Like, a lot of people come to these spaces too because they're so rare and they seek out therapy with no structure, if that makes sense. If there are more therapists and things like that, opportunities for people to go to for those actual things, which we actually have connected to the garden now. Like, we have therapists who actually come to the garden, so they're like, Come to my job, it's free energy, you know what I mean? Like, or we'll come through and actually do that, and we have events like that, you know, like all the time. Like, so you know, we have doulas, we have all types of stuff coming through where it's just like the systematic stuff we don't have to really rely on, you know. Um, they're not trustworthy. I'm gonna be real. I'm not trying to preach, I'm not trying to be like super political, but it's like from a data standpoint, medical apartheid is a real thing. And I'm not saying don't go to hospital, I'm just saying be aware of what you're doing, and when you get there, the conversations you're having. So it's like being more aware, and then when we actually do need to go to the hospital, we know what we're going for, and that's the flip side. I'm talking about the institution energy, right? But most of the doctors, first thing they tell you in my lifetime that I've seen, even visiting with my people and stuff, my aunts and uncles and mothers and stuff, like the first thing they're gonna try to dig you to do is eat right. Like, but we go off over that immediately, like, no, I need a pill. No, like you want you want me to like change them out, diet? No, don't have time, fast food. It's like, well, we can kind of like work with them and be like, yeah, the doctors just say eat right, right? And it's like we're getting a lot of customers now, like, because they're dying, and they're like the doctor said, like, literally, they're literally recommending this over the medicine. And it's just like, okay, well, now we have infrastructure. So again, it's like trading the infrastructure, so you don't have to go to Walmart and support that. Don't have to go to contribute your dollar when you're already struggling and you're contributed to communities that are not that basically distracting. It's always easier when you're doing stuff from where you actually are from and you actually can relate to when it comes to community because the nuances are what draw people to you. Me knowing the yearly parade that happens and having memories that I can share with the average person I walks by from the city, knowing it's a cultural thing, be knowing how holidays move around here, the church scene, what Sundays look like, and where people are going after church, spending their money, me knowing, like you know, what we're talking about behind the scenes that everybody goes home from work and what's important, how we're reacting to things on the news, all that. It makes it easy for me to like provide what people are actually looking for without even asking, if that makes sense. I went somewhere sunny side, California, where they're already doing all the stuff that I love. It's like I probably wouldn't fit in there and be able to really help in a in a real way because it's like that's a different culture that I'm not used to. And it's like even you know you're eating healthy, you might not ever touch a collard green or a piece of okra. It's like that's all we touch. Like, you know what I mean? Over here. So it's like you're eating korabi over there, which is healthy, but it's not something I'm you know, what is that? Like, you know what I mean? Like that type of energy. So, again, the more that you're doing it in spaces that you can relate to, the easier it is to actually do that work in an impactful way, indeed.

Sheela 27:39

Yeah, it is very, very important point that you mentioned that is creation of infrastructure through root life.r. There is a good need, you know, for better diet, but there is no infrastructure. So you come in into this community and creating that, yeah, connecting to this medical apartheid that was going on. This is bigger than social entrepreneurship. Yeah, this is not a simple agricultural farm, you know.

Dishaun 28:10

Yeah, indeed. So, yeah, so it's like um, it's actually a book called Medical Apartheid, it's by Harriet A. Washington, and it talks about the medical history since the invention of the American Medical Association. Um, it starts with like the witch doctor movement. I'm not sure if you ever heard of that term, but that was because there were a lot of uh uh indigenous people, people of color who knew how to navigate medicinal herbs and things like that, and had a whole bunch of things that were working that everyone was using, not just indigenous people. And they were doing so well that the American Medical Association had to come up with a campaign, start getting people to come to the doctors as we know them now. And back then it was just white male doctors with not a lot of education either. If that makes sense, right? You talk about the founders of this type of stuff, right? And they were wealthy, like some a lot of them were plantation owners or like benefits of that type of system. And they would use a lot sometimes, a lot of times they would use like their slaves because they were like property to experiment and things like that. And then it goes all the way up to present day, like you know, all the different things that have happened throughout the country, but how like you know, they're kind of like prototype generic energy. Like if it's happening at John Hopkins, it probably is happening at Yale. And if you pay attention, oh, that happened to you when you went to the, or that happened to your mother when she went to the and they said these things right, and then it ended up being like it's so crazy that like it's the only book I've ever read that I had to like take time to read. Like every chapter had to like wait a month to process it because it's like this is real experiences, like wow, like this is deep. Um, and so she wrote that book, and then she wrote a follow-up book called Um A Terrible Thing to Waste. And it's a book on about environmental racism that connects all the dots. So, like having like all the like main the bus stations and and airports and things like that, and communities of color close to it, um, and the runoff that comes from that and wifi, all that stuff, but like how it's like targeted towards communities of colors, even now the AI, uh data banks is a big thing, but it's always that. Like, you know, so these things have been documented, people don't talk about it a lot, but from a system standpoint, they pop up everywhere. And so since I'm at systems vagin's mindset level, I see this everywhere. And it's like, what good is me doing a community garden if I can only feed three people or you know, three families from it? When it's like we can start creating infrastructure, aggregating product, and we could be feeding our entire neighborhood and really having that change in infrastructure and not just feeding. Now it's like, let's get the community cooks, the grandmas, the aunties that really cook, like you're gonna be able to count for every kid on a block. And let's set them up, let's get them paid a little bit, let's buy the groceries and have them make a plant-based meal. And let's get the nutrition energy, which is we don't even need to hire a professional nutritionist, we just say hi, all that stuff and talk about how it relates to people's diets and things like that. And then they can go to the nutritionist with knowing this information, right? Um, but to get people just drawn into like the oh the buy-in, like, oh yeah, I need more of this, like I need to find more of this. Like, this is actually healthy and healing me, it's not just something that's in the background, like, yeah, eat more apple a day, keeps the doctor away, type energy. Like, no, actually, this many grams of sour stock leaf in the morning and at night will change this, like you know what I mean, like that type of energy, and knowing that and being confident in that, um, and having the access to sour stock leaf and new having kinetics, like you know, like where are we getting that from? But we have it, like you know, like uh because we have connections to people throughout the diaspora. So that type of energy um is very important and it doesn't exist because it's systematically it wasn't meant for us to tap into these things, but again, now AI is changing everything, even like I say this, but like Donald Trump changed a lot of stuff in the candidate nonprofit world. Um, because a lot of us in the grassroots, we used the nonprofits that were already established. I was talking about that are not from here, up here, and they they extract a lot. We would have to use them to get funding because we weren't able to establish our stuff ourselves. There was like all these barriers to that. Um, and so they would get $5 million grants or whatever and give us $20,000, and we'd be happy because we had zero. Like, you know, so $20,000 overnight is nice. Yeah, we could build out everything we're looking for, but overlooking the fact that they just like use our energy and our plight to get five million for it. Like, you know what I mean? And like all that's going to salaries for people who don't live here. Like, you know what I mean? And for them to be, you know, live in a nice middle class area while they're supposed to be serving us, right? Now money's supposed to be going towards us. So when all the cuts happen, the people who are doing that type of narrative are the ones who I've seen suffering, go for a cave. But the people actually do the work, we still make, we still get still actually us. Now we don't have the gatekeepers, we're seeing way more money coming to us because we're the ones actually doing it. We got we're showing improving, and so it's like people want to see results, so it's like, oh, we know they're gonna give us results. There's no more of that nepotism energy happening, and it's like, I know we all took a hit last year because we were dependent on the gatekeepers, and so it's like the gatekeepers don't think we need to give to us, so we like, oh manny, but now it's like now we can go for the money ourselves, like that. I mean, it's been re-reuvised and revisioned, and we just you know we adapt to that. But the money is there, like you know, it's getting released all the time, and it's just like a lot of times, like the news has sensationalizes everything and keeps you always in that fight or flank. That's how it's been for like a lot of things and other things in the industry. But it's like if you just pay attention, the ancestors are always blessed, as long as you're doing what you need to do, and as long as you're flexible to moves and whatever the situation is funny in the move without compromising who you are. As long as you can do that, like it'll always come the way you need it to come, and you'll always be blessed. And have a community is greater than having any amount of money because I can leave my head in so many places if I didn't have a place to stay. I get fed anywhere. I turn down food all the time. Like, you know what I mean? Like, I go to stores and they want to buy, buy for me. I'm trying to buy groceries from them, like you know what I mean. It's like that type of energy just shifts the narrative, and people love it, and people support it. And so again, like I'm just doing my part to create the infrastructure and bringing people who also have the skill set and knowledge and experience and resources, we're coming together and we're educating these things without the help of like traditional like bureaucracy. And that feels good indeed.

Sheela 34:26

Thank you, Deshaun. So um if someone in their own community noticing a gap right now, what would you share with them about finding their own fooding and deciding whether to take that first intentional step? I call it the dash.

Dishaun 34:47

Yes, I got you in general or for agriculture?

Sheela 34:52

Actually, if you don't mind, please share both of them. Uh because you you are not just what you're doing, you're more than that.

Dishaun 35:01

So we see so um taking the time to just discover yourself. Um I feel like it's important. We don't know who we are. We're out the womb, pleasing our parents if you have them, like you know, and then pleasing all the authority from school to jobs and everything. And then we get to like if a lucky we place where I get to retirement phase, whether that's early or late, and then we want to do what we want to do. It's like, nah, figure out who you are now. It's way easier to do it. Information is everywhere. Again, AI can help you think through things, not think for you, but help you get through those fogs or whatever, and figure out what you're passionate about, what you like, you know, like uh even actually AI if you use it a lot, like it'll it'll know. Like, you know what I mean? Pay attention to you. So it's like, what's calling you? And then ask, like, you know, developing a plan and strategy around it first for yourself, right? Because like everything I do, like I farm because I want to eat healthy and take care of myself and be independent. Somebody might want to do something else that's not agriculture. Everybody's grassroots is like finding who's already doing it, finding the niche, and again, you can use technology to help figure out all this stuff really easy. Don't be generic with it, be specific, like you know, to who you are, figuring out what you need to do for self-help, for therapy for yourself, for trauma. That you know, if you're coming from Western civilization, the name of the game is trauma. Whether you can personally think of something or it's coming through your lineage, or if you had to deal with Western civilization, I don't know where you're coming from, the name of the game is trauma. So, like dealing with that, so proper time management, spirituality, just tap into it just a little bit. That's been a week just diving deep into like who you are, what you're about, and what resonates, what doesn't. Then figure out what you want to do. Once you figure out what you want to do, you know, where the niches are, and then just go for it. Like, use again, use AI, figure out who's in this network, pull up the events, things like that. Whatever you're coming from should be genuine at that point. It's not something that you're like, oh, maybe I'm in a fog about, I'm just gonna try this out. It's like, you know, have a plan, have like a 20-year plan. Like you're not gonna be a 10-year plan, five-year plan, but it's like, and this is a part of it, and I'm I'm down to like do the work that needs to get done right now to yield the results five years from now. Thinking like that is very important because everything is so like push button, like back to reality, agriculture in itself, is like, yo, it takes months for me to plant a seed for things to grow, and that's like the world. Like, you know what I mean? Like, a push-button culture does not exist in reality. So it's like um accepting that and making sure that you set up yourself a comfortable position to be provided for, whether that be by yourself or by others. If you gotta like stay holding your parents for a little longer, do it. Like, you know what I mean? Like, if you have the opportunity, a lot of us don't even have the opportunity. So it's like, you know, um, do whatever you have to do. But when you have a plan, you can do that. You can, you know, hey, yeah, sit here for a year. But if you don't know, you're like, I don't know if I'm gonna ever gonna leave my parents' house. I gotta do something else. Like that kind of kills the momentum, right? So having a strategy, strategizing is key. Building out being a good person is key because people just gravitate toward that, and then they'll hear you out. Like you know what I mean, eventually, once they realize you have something to talk about, and then you just start building and you keep that momentum going and you know, stick amongst yourselves as much as possible. I'm not saying do not work with allies, I love allies, but they're allies in the name of the game with an ally is they're only allies as far as it's beneficial, and that's okay. That's that's what an ally is supposed to be. Like, I don't know where we try to make allies like the actual family or the kingdom that we come from. It's like then they won't be allies, they just be a part of the kingdom, like you know what I mean. Like, it's just understanding that like it's okay to have allies, but allies are allies. When it's no longer in their interest, they're not gonna ally with you, and that's you know, you leverage what you have in the moment. Because a lot of people are heartbroken, they give up because they they work with allies and the allies like people it's like the allies actually gave you a 10-year run, like you know what I mean, and you didn't do anything with it, you didn't set yourself up because you thought you were gonna be with your allies forever, it's like they got their own things going on, like you know what I mean, or they're falling apart, they can't help you no more. So that type of energy that's important and um yeah, just be open-ended welcome, like be firm about what you are about. Like, you know, I definitely am firm about who I serve, um, particularly, but everybody's welcome. But it's like, trust me, like when when it's food and stuff going on, you know, we serve in our community first, and then if it's extra, then you know, you can get some. If you really have fluid, you can pay for some, like you know what I mean, or support somebody, getting getting free food or something like that. Um, but whatever your goal, your mission is, it doesn't matter what it is. If you're if you're positive about it, it's a positive mission, just stick with it and know that it's it's no pushback energy. Like, even though, like, once you put in the work, it seems like pushback stuff happened like every week. Like, oh, this opportunity, this half million opportunity, this million opportunity, this it's random, but it's all for community, too. It's not like I'm bringing all the million dollars, but not to build infrastructure community or things like that. It's just like we're here and I've seen it, I've been on both sides of the fence of giving and receiving it. Like I've sat on boards where we approve our local business, a couple million dollars, and it's us, but you know what I mean? Like, and it's like, you know, we they would have never got that anywhere else. But you know, because it's the reality of how racism, systematic racism is, and how it plays up for certain communities. It's a real thing. Sometimes it's hard to fathom if you don't live it and experience the nuances of it and the generational nuances of it, but it's a real thing, and that's not an excuse. We all can get past it, especially now because we can find solutions for it, but we have to actually address it and acknowledge that it exists. That makes sense, right? So that we can actually start doing implementing solutions, and that's where we are. So just be encouraged, buckle down and document your whole experience, show it all if you're doing it real. That energy in itself is a marketing energy that can't be explained through some social media quaveling period, yeah, indeed. So, yeah. I mean, again, I have what 5,000 followers, and all that all it takes is one funder to give me $100,000 that's seen it out of the 5,000. Some people have a million followers, but none of them, you know, can afford McDonald's. Like, you know what I mean? So it's like, you know, quality over quantity, and your quality is what you present, and you'll attract quality back as far as support. That makes sense, indeed.

Sheela 41:21

Yeah, thank you so much. You know, uh, diversity, that's why it matters, you know. I'm so glad you are here, Dishan, to talk about it because you know, we can talk about the capital, social capital, and the intersections of how the social entrepreneurship would work, but you brought in the nuances which uh others might miss. How the racism is also an integral part of the system because that also is in the intersection. And so thank you for bringing that. And uh and the second thing uh which was very beautiful, I thought, was um quality over and quantity, yeah, bring in your authenticity and doing your thing with profound passion attracts more you know capital into the system. Um thank you for that. Really appreciate you uh your work and uh as a beautiful human being you are, uh Dishon. And I celebrate you.

Dishaun 42:34

I appreciate you indeed. I'm grateful for the ancestors for giving me this journey, and I'm grateful for all the people who continuously support or have supported, who are here, who have left this earth, um, you know, who will be doing great things in the future. I appreciate everybody because again, this is a community thing. And yes, I do know my role, but I my role would not exist without community for certain.

Sheela 42:53

Yeah, it's beautiful.