The Gangster Gardener of LA

South Central Los Angeles is a food desert - an area filled with liquor stores, fast food chains and vacant lots. Tired of driving 45 minutes to buy food that is not chemically treated, Ron Finley decided to turn some of those unused plots, starting with the patch in front of his house, into a food forest. With obesity rates 5X higher in South Central than in Beverly Hills, a neighborhood only 8 to 10 miles away, Finley realized that food is the problem, but is also the solution. "The drive-thrus are killing more people than drive-bys." Finley and a group of volunteer gardeners from all over Los Angeles are changing that, one lot at a time. "Growing your own food is like printing your own money," says this passionate gangster gardener.

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