Garden project

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Hope's Edge: The Next Diet for a Small Planet Jeremy P. Tarcher See book keywords and concepts

Circling loading docks and tourist traps in heavy San Francisco traffic, we finally stop near Pier 28 to ask loaders in rubber boots and aprons, "Can you help us find the garden project office? Cathrine Sneed?" Alice had told us in our first conversation that meeting Cathrine was a must. Alice's Chez Panisse Foundation was an early supporter of her work. But I needed no convincing. I had heard Cathrine speak the year before, and I couldn't forget her. I knew she had another piece of the puzzle I'd been trying to put together for thirty years.

They want to talk to you, not me," Cathrine says, sweeping up a welcome gift of fresh green garlic in her long arms and sitting us down with garden project employee Anthony Travis. Anthony, despite his former street life and time in prison, looks far shy of his thirty-five yeats. As Anthony chats with us across the picnic table, it's clear he isn't surprised by the sheriff's study showing that the garden experience makes a difference. "It's hard to get out of jail and stay out," he says. "There's no one to help you get on your feet.

Ron says that, despite his nervousness, he was touched as the men described the garden project, telling him that it offered them hope, and that they were staying out of jail, off drugs, and enjoying productive lives. "The next day, Cathrine sent these guys over with desserts for my station. She was trying to get on our good side, and it worked," Ron admits.

One of Cathrine's secret food-to-heart weapons is a longtime relationship with the bakery Just Desserts, a Bay Area sweet-tooths' favorite that donated the original half-acre for the garden and has, over the years, hired graduates of the garden project. "She made a connection," Ron tells us. How sneaky this Cathrine woman is, I think to myself. With one speaking-from-the-heart session and a few tasty morsels, she'd accomplished step one in breaking the barrier of human stereotyping. Step two happened soon thereafter.

Anthony grins as he tells us that he's now earning more than twice the minimum wage as a manager in the garden project offshoot Tree Corps, which since 1994 has employed ex-convicts to plant and care for almost 10,000 trees throughout San Francisco. "My hands have been in all those trees," Anthony says, beaming.

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