By Bonnie Newman Davis
When Duron Chavis lost his job as community engagement manager at Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, he didn’t miss a beat. Years before Chavis began working at Lewis Ginter four years ago, his reputation for food justice advocacy and continuous quest to bring fresh foods, holistic health and wellness to people who need it most was well known throughout Richmond.
A Virginia State University graduate, Chavis got in front of the country’s looming food insecurity crisis by serving as the university’s project director of the Harding Street Urban Ag Center, an indoor farming incubator funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Along the way, he gained national recognition for his leadership in urban agriculture and community-based farming solutions.
His awards and recognition are numerous, and includes his selection for Hope in the Cities’ Community Trustbuilding Fellowship program (2015), Leadership Metro Richmond (2011), and being a certified conflict resolution trainer for the Alternatives to Violence Project. A founder of the McDonough Community Garden, Chavis also founded the highly acclaimed Happily Natural Day festival, a weekend experience that focuses on cultural awareness, health, wellness and social change.
A master of all forms of media when seeking and sowing seeds of hope, Chavis’ Resiliency Garden Initiative sprang to life as he prepared to exit Lewis Ginter the first week in April. Armed with his glittering past achievements combined with his freshly polished fundraising skills from Lewis Ginter’s more corporatized environment, Chavis immediately launched a Facebook fundraiser to support the initiative with a clear goal: “I’m raising money to get 1,300 bags of soil to complete our Resiliency Gardens,” his post reads. “Each raised bed takes 6 bags of 3 cubic feet of 
soil. We have 225 requests. Can you help?”
Noting the deadly impact of the virus, which has killed nearly 50,000 people in the United States and 450 people in Virginia, Chavis relayed other casualties.
“COVID-19 is hitting people hard,” Chavis added. “Folks are losing their jobs and many can’t go out due to immunodeficiency. So we are helping increase their food security with a raised bed so they can grow their own food at this time.”
Chavis further spread his message during WRIR’s “Lightly On The Ground” interview with Summer Gardener on April 14. By mid-summer, garden owners can expect to see kale, collard greens, melons, potatoes and other vegetables in abundance in the 6X4 raised bed gardens that have been placed in various parts of Richmond, Chavis told Gardener.
A few weeks after starting Resiliency Garden, Chavis and food justice advocate Nikiya Ellis, along with nearly 400 donors, had raised $19,028 and counting. Dozens of volunteers also aided the project’s successful launch.
Chavis’ excitement was palpable on an April 25 Facebook post: “We. Just. Passed. 19k!!!!!!”
In addition to constantly thanking those who’ve stood behind his work, Chavis has been vocal about losing his job after working tirelessly to 
create more diversity in Lewis Ginter’s community programming, only to be laid off without two week’s notice, he said.
Looking back, he told Gardener that he’s long known that his mission is larger than Lewis Ginter, and described the Resiliency Garden and similar projects as his life’s work.
“My work is more important than the Botanical Garden as a place; community engagement doesn’t stop because of a crisis. Racial equity is not work you can turn on and off when you feel like it.”
In wrapping up the LOTG interview, he adds, “Nothing says hope like planting a seed. That’s my mantra. This pandemic has everyone (experiencing) high anxiety and stress, but I feel the gardening work gives me space, peace, calm and also something to look forward to. We’ll get through this. Mother Nature is divine in her complexity and refined in her resilience.”
In reading more about Chavis and during brief conversations, I learned that, in addition to his extensive knowledge of agriculture and urban farming, his side gig could easily be writing poetry. As we near the end of National Poetry Month, his timing and prose couldn’t be more perfect. Check out his Facebook page for the full poem:
Untitled by Duron I. Chavis
I got all this work on me who got time to chill
I got all this work on me who got time to chill
I got all this work on me who got time to chill
I got all this work on me who got time to chill
I’m Southside born and raised off of broad rock
My pops ran the block I used to ride and watch
Fast forward they den gentrified the spot
Half a million dollar home remember fiends was getting rocked
I was busy skipping school rolling Dutches of the la
At the age of 17 caught a couple of bullet shots
What you know about semi automatic rounds letting off
Ducking for your life and flashbacks before you 21
I seen death blowing kisses at me
We not cut from the same cloth my type of stitch is different family
I’m from a place where ain’t no such thing as plan b
Stay tuned. Next week, I’ll share how two Richmond natives are spending their down time while sheltering at home. Stay healthy, stay safe.
To become a Resiliency Garden volunteer, visit: bit.ly/resilientvolunteers
Bonnie Newman Davis
Journalist, Journalism Educator, Media Consultant
Executive Director, BND Institute of Media and Culture Inc.
bndimc.org
804 683-7203
