Food From the 'Hood
5010 11th Ave.
Los Angeles, Calif. 90043
(213) 295-4842

It started with a half-dozen youngsters at South Central Los Angeles' gigantic Crenshaw High School when two adults joined together in the autumn after the Los Angeles riots two years ago. They decided that one small way to help rebuild their community would be to pull out a patch of 6-foot-tall weeds on the back of the sprawling school grounds and plant a vegetable garden there. One adult, biology teacher Tammy Bird, would teach them something about science. The other adult, volunteer business professional Melinda McMullen, would teach them something about business. Togehter, they'd all have some fun working in the sun instead of the classroom, and maybe give the produce to a local soup kitchen and sell some of it at a local Farmer's Market.

Within a year, the simple little garden had grown into something truly unique: A thriving business -- Food From the 'Hood -- owned and operated by 40 Crenshaw students, earning a healthy profit to be invested for them to use as college scholarships, and not coincidentally giving them a lesson about how to succeed in the adult world that no school could begin to teach.

Along the way, the concept was so startling and frankly inspiring that it's already drawn media attention from all over the country. Food From the 'Hood's bright and busy office in a little building behind Crenshaw's football field proudly displays national media articles from The Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, The Washington Post and People magazine, all filled with praise and amazement.

The youngsters, though, say there's nothing amazing about it. Food From the 'Hood just grew, just as their garden did, with the help of a little cultivation, a little help from a diverse group of adults who got involved, and, of course, a lot of hard work.

Don't talk to us, talk to the owners, the adult advisers said, and that's what I did, interviewing seriously earnest youngsters Mark Sarria and Benjamin Osborne, each of whom holds an equal share in the growing business.

Food From the 'Hood harvested its first crop at the end of 1992, Sarria said, donating all the bounty to the local Helpers for the Homeless and the Hungry. The following summer, deciding that they'd like to turn the project into a way to make some money for graduates to take to college, they packed boxes of herbs from the school garden and opened a stand at the Santa Monica Farmer's Market, where to their amazement, they sold out their stock and made $150 in less than a half hour.

It wasn't a great jump from this one-time success to the idea of marketing a product. With the assistance of the non-profit economic-development group Rebuild Los Angeles, they got together with Luther, Smith & Small, a minority owned investment banking firm, and Sweet Adelaide, a co-packer of salad dressing. Other adults jumped in: Melinda McMullen, a public-relations executive, left her job to join the project full-time; and management consultant Norris Bernstein, former owner of a salad-dressing firm, signed on as a volunteer adviser. With the help of grants and a full semester of discussion and taste testing ("Nobody liked Italian dressing, it's too oily," Sarria said), the group approved a formula and contracted with Sweet Adelaide to make Straight Out 'the Garden Creamy Italian Salad Dressing and with local Bromar of Southern California to distribute it to supermarkets all over Los Angeles. The first jars hit the shelves in April 1994, every one bearing a bright, professional label designed by Osborne.

Food From the 'Hood (Continued)

Selling at $2.59 a jar and riding a crest of support from the community, Food From the 'Hood has the dressing available in more than 2,000 stores including major supermarket chains. The sales goal is 30,000 cases by mid-1995, a target that would bring in $100,000 for college scholarships for the business's student owners. Scholarship amounts, up to a possible maximum of $15,000 a year, are based on an incentive program in which students earn points for grades, attendance and citizenship, SAT tutoring time and hours spent working for Food From the 'Hood. Run into problems with attitude problems and bad grades, and you LOSE points. That's an incentive too.

Any high school ought to be able to do something similar, Sarria said; but youngsters shouldn't be under any illusions that it's easy. "First, you've got to get along with everybody," he said. "The business won't work if people can't get along. Then you have to be very committed. It came as a surprise how much time you have to put into it to make it happen. If you own your own business, the only time you're not working, you're sleeping."

But Sarria loves it. He graduated in June, and he'll be off soon to start freshman classes at the University of the Pacific, where he'll be majoring in business . . . of course.

All the feature stories on @GRASS-ROOTS.ORG's pages are reported and written by Robin Garr, a prize-winning journalist who has visited more than 500 innovative grassroots programs in all 50 states since 1990.

Browse his book, Reinvesting In America, at Amazon.com.

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