Over the past ten years, planting justice has designed self-funding programs that create living wage jobs for formerly incarcerated people and low-income youth that are transforming the CA BAY…

Over the past ten years, planting justice has designed self-funding programs that create living wage jobs for formerly incarcerated people and low-income youth that are transforming the CA BAY area's food system, while demonstrating practical and replicable solutions to the interconnected economic/health/environmental crises plaguing urban communities.for this new project, planting justice is collaborating with mira vista united church of christ to build a "pay-what-you-can" cafe, healthy foods marketplace, retail nursery, urban farmstore, and community center on a 1.3 acre historic nursery in EL sobrante that will create living-wage career opportunities for people with barriers to employment. The cafe/marketplace will source healthy produce and value-added products from a network of beginning farmers and food justice organizations within a cooperative marketing platform that supports the entire region with brick-and-mortar healthy retail and commercial kitchen access. The retailnursery will make climatically resilient and nutrient dense plants available to the community, while supporting nursery operations that create living-wage jobs for formerly incarcerated people at PJ's 2-acre production and mail-order nursery in east oakland. Produce and edible plant starts will be available to low-income people via snap and EBT, and educational programming will teach people how to grow their own healthy food, culinary arts, and nutrition. These program objectives will be accomplished: 1) developing connections between two or more sectors of the food system; 2) supporting the development of entrepreneurial projects: 3) developing innovative linkages between the public, private, and nonprofit sectors; 4) increasing food self-reliance of communities; and 5) encouraging long-term planning activities and comprehensive multi-agency approaches.