Detroit Teens Plant Seeds of Change

Still one of the country's most challenged areas, Detroit is seeing a lot of people wanting to create positive change in their city. BuildOn (formerly Building with Books) is an organization that brings youth together in after-school projects to help better their communities. The program works in a number of cities across the country, and in Detroit, they are planting a garden on an abandoned property and donating the fruit and vegetables they grow to the hungry.

Ivory Price is a young buildOn volunteer who has lived some tough times herself. She is now one of the change-makers who wants to see Detroit restored. "Just planting one seed can definitely help toward that goal," the 15-year-old told CNN.

The planting project isn't quite as simple as laying down a few seeds, though. The plot resides on a piece of land that used to be a playground. Having been abandoned and neglected, it is now gang territory and also rampant with prostitution.

Given its dire situation, others in Detroit don't understand why buildOn volunteers are trying to improve the space. "We definitely encounter people, even with this project and other times with buildOn saying, 'Oh that's impossible! You can't do that; you should just leave it alone. Why waste your time?'" said Price.

To that she responds, "You never know until you try."

BuildOn founder Jim Ziolkowski believes the garden is the beginning of a bigger movement of change in the area. "The rest of the neighborhood sees what's going on, it sees how the youth is stepping up and leading this change," he said. "They take a stake in this garden and then the gangs move out, and then the prostitution moves out."

"It's change," he said. "It doesn't happen over night, but it happens."

Photo courtesy of Building with Books via Facebook.

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