Once a month, Rosa Lopez lined up with her youngest child in tow for free food at a San Jose charity. Cheerful volunteers gave them grocery bags with bread, soup cans, rice, peanut butter and a few vegetables. Gracias, goodbye, see you next time.
But this dreary hunger routine changed for the better when she met a stocky, middle-age Latino professional who lived nearby. He had come to the charity with novel idea: In a city blessed with sunshine, he wanted to teach poor families like hers how to grow food in their backyards.
"We had to try something because money and food was running out, faster than before," Lopez said in Spanish.
And the man with the idea needed something new in his life, too.
Raul Lozano had just left a prestigious job as the executive director of Teatro Vision, one of the oldest and most successful Latino theater companies in the country.
"I was burned out and had my fill," Lozano said about the fundraising side of show business. At 55, he wasn't set for retirement, either. "I had no idea what I was going to do next. Some people thought I was crazy."
But in less than a year, Lozano's idea, La Mesa Verde (The Green Table), has sprouted faster than a happy cabbage, winning over funders and volunteer gardeners eager to work directly with families who can't afford healthy, organically grown food. READ FULL STORY
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