FAMU's Green Thumb

Green Coalition President Halimah Wynn presents facts about water usage and ways to conserve it alongside Information Chair Furé Muhammad.

As clouds begin to cover in thick masses up above, a small group of students convene under the dark sky at The S.E.E.D.–the urban garden adjacent to the FAMU Hansel E. Tookes Recreation Center. The occasion: a discussion about the environment in their very own environment, specifically water conservation.

The event titled Water Day is the fourth installment of Green Week hosted by Florida A&M University’s Green Coalition. Although the organization was founded at the university in 1996 by a faculty member and former student, after being inactive for three years the coalition’s current president hopes to bring visibility to the chapter and encourage members of the community to become more vested in sustainability issues. 

“We’re making a comeback. I literally just tell everyone about [the Green Coalition]. I‘ll ask, ‘Hey do you like gardening? Because if so come on over to the Green Coalition!’ We’re really trying to make FAMU more sustainable and environmentally friendly,” said Halimah Wynn, president of the Green Coalition and a junior Agronomy student from Vero Beach, Fla.

Wynn transferred from the University of South Florida in Fall of 2016 and quickly sought out ways to get involved with the Sustainability Institute and ultimately The S.E.E.D.

In 2016 FAMU was awarded a $50,000 grant from the Home Depot Retool Your School competition. The funds were originally intended to create an Ecolab which would serve as an outdoor classroom for students to learn about food production. However, it has since been rebranded as The S.E.E.D and launched officially in January of 2018.

“[The S.E.E.D] stands for The Sustainability Education and Engagement Destination,” said Bakari McClendon who is the coordinator for engagement and communications for the FAMU Sustainability Institute and supervises the The S.E.E.D garden. “It’s really about helping students gain experiences in gardening and learning new skills and thinking about solutions to sustainability challenges in a practical way,” McClendon shared. 

The establishment of the The S.E.E.D has blossomed into a mutually beneficial partnership between the Green Coalition and the greater Tallahassee community. The Green Coalition hosts gardening at The S.E.E.D every Thursday and Friday for students to help maintain the garden by watering plants, pulling weeds, harvesting crops as well as learning about how they too can lead more eco-friendly lifestyles.

“The Green Coalition has always been a part of addressing sustainability challenges. The Sustainability Institute works hand in hand with Green Coalition in engaging students in the campus community,” said McClendon. “We’ve had five workshops so far ranging from how to make eco-friendly products in your home for cleaning, to growing mushrooms, to how to build a compost bin. It’s been a great experience to see the number of students who have come to the garden and who have chosen to take part in creating a thriving space on campus where students and faculty and community members can see what’s growing and learn something new,” he finished. 

According to the New York Law School Social Justice Project, 23.5 million Americans live in communities located more than a mile from a supermarket also knowns as a food dessert. African Americans are half as likely to have access to chain supermarkets and “area-specific studies have found that minority communities are more likely to have smaller grocery stores carrying higher priced, less varied food products than other neighborhoods.” 

FAMU happens to situated right in the middle of that dessert. 

This fact reveals the importance of the Green Coalition’s advocacy on behalf of food insecure communities. In their most recent venture, the coalition partnered with FAMU’s Farmshare initiative to contribute to the weekly distribution of groceries and produce to students, faculty and the city’s residents. Over the course of the semester S.E.E.D. volunteers took part in growing greens among other vegetables which were harvested to be added to the Farmshare giveaways.

“We’re associated with The S.E.E.D and the Sustainability Institute and of course the urban garden now so this has helped to build a connection between us as African Americans and our food which needed to be built. Students come out here and they get to harvest food that they’ll eat and food other students will eat too,” said Wynn. 

With the flourishing crops of The S.E.E.D as their backdrop, Wynn and her Information Chair Furé Muhammad share with the small crowd some the ways they can conserve water as students without investing in high tech water filters or eco-friendly washers. Following the brief presentation, Muhammad prepares for a game which simulates how many people in developing  ountries must travel on average four miles to find clean water. 

While the teams plot their schemes to win the game making time to trash talk their opponents between strategy, the game has serious undertones. Though the organization is welcoming and lighthearted in nature these students are woke to the environmental and economic crises at stake. 

From their breakout week to their ongoing service it is clear that even on a grassroots level these youth are working diligently to guarantee a sustainable future for generations to come.