CAMPUS PROFILE
David Baron:
Medicine
in the Macaroni
and Cheese
His shovel slammed into the dirt, pushing up weeds and worms. The cloudy sky above threatened
rain, a blessing to the seeds waiting down
below. With spring growing season on the
horizon, the gardens were just months
from being full of beans, carrots, radishes,
peas, arugula and spinach.
“It was breathtaking to walk out here
and realize that it would be the future
place for HOPE Gardens,” David Baron
said. “The feeling I had was incredible.
“The garden itself is not so much a
food security initiative. It’s more of a social
and economic initiative. It’s based in transi-
tional employment for the homeless and
creating community networks and a social
support system for homeless people. That’s
the way we’re going at urban farming.”
HOPE stands for the Campus Y’s
Homeless Outreach and Poverty Eradica-
tion committee. The gardens are Baron’s
tangible way of working toward his goal:
shaping business operations to make the
world a better place. From his first jobs —
mowing lawns and volunteering as a
teacher’s assistant in a class for autistic and
other developmentally challenged students
— Baron has looked for ways he can use
his time to help others.
The gardens, on 14 acres off Homestead
Road, are bringing together community
and student volunteers toward a goal of
employment and food self-sufficiency for
some of Chapel Hill’s homeless.
Baron has gone to part-time student
status, delaying his graduation date until
2012 to pursue the garden project for
which he has studied extensively.
“I struggle with having, with being
afforded, health and opportunities right
out of the womb,” he said. “So I don’t
deprive myself, nor do I justify ‘having’
by giving back. I try to leverage resources
and opportunities to improve others’ lives
and prospects.”
Baron says his family shaped his desire
to help others. He calls himself a
“momma’s boy” but said he gets his adven-
turous side from his dad. His mother is the
director of special education in Atlanta,
Baron’s hometown, and his father, recently
retired from work as an epidemiologist for
the Centers for Disease Control and Pre-
vention, also has become involved in com-
munity gardening and agriculture.
“I am where I am because I was always,
though not explicitly, encouraged to care
by my family and have over time devel-
oped an appreciation for the natural world
and all humans, especially those that are
underprivileged and overlooked, because of
what they can offer and because of what I
can offer them.”
Baron got into farming when he
worked for Global Service Corps in Tanza-
nia in the summer of 2008, training groups
of marginalized farmers in bio-intensive
agriculture. He helped about 240 people
learn to cost-effectively increase yields, sus-
tain resources and apply those guidelines to
larger farms.
