DeVante Wiley is not letting his age affect the difference he can make in the Greenwood community.
The 17-year-old Greenwood High School junior was inspired while attending the William Winter Institute last summer.
He developed three ideas when asked to come up with goals for how to improve his community.
“I wanted to mentor young boys, have a first annual community day at Whittington Park for everyone in Greenwood and do something healthy for each community,” he said.
When he returned, Wiley went straight to Greenwood Mayor Carolyn McAdams to see if she could help him get started on his plans.
“Devante wanted to take on a project and wanted to know what he could do,” McAdams said.
Since becoming mayor in 2009, McAdams had been adamant about starting community gardens in Greenwood neighborhoods.
“When I first took office, I went to a conference in New Orleans about healthy communities,” she said. “I was hooked. It was all I talked about when I came back.”
Gardening allows groups to come together to work. It also offers healthy eating options and beautifies what was an empty plot of land.
“I thought, ‘This is what we need to do in Greenwood,’” McAdams said. “But no one had stepped up to lead the project.”
Wiley was up to the challenge. During the summer institute, he remembered a trip to Oxford where he saw a community garden.
“A white man came to the garden and started working and then a black man came to the garden, and they began talking like they knew each other,” he said. “The garden was a way for the community to come together.”
He also knew the statistics about Mississippi being the most obese state in the country and knew a garden would give people better access to healthy foods.
This would go along with his summer goal to provide something healthy for a community in Greenwood.
“The mayor told me she didn’t have anyone willing to start the community garden,” he said. “I went around with a sheet of paper and had an entire list that said they would help,” he said.
Wiley planned to start the garden in Baptist Town. Although he no longer lives in the Greenwood neighborhood, he grew up there and felt they would be supportive of him and the project.
He did worry that it might get trashed or people would over or underuse the garden, but that didn’t stop him.
Last fall, the mayor sent out city workers to till the space on Avenue A. The Mississippi State Extension Service tested the soil, and master gardeners helped with the planting.
“We planted together, held conversation and got to know each other a little better,” Wiley said. “I felt beyond proud that there were people who did want to help and see change. I felt as if I had already reached my goal, and there were no vegetables yet.”
Wiley was able to get people to take shifts watering, weeding and doing other work in the garden when he wasn’t there.
By fall the garden was filled with cabbage, mustard, turnip and collard greens, beets, broccoli, spinach, Brussels sprouts, cauliflower, string beans, English peas, purple top turnips, three kinds of onions and rutabagas.
“A lot of people came, especially around Thanksgiving,” said Wiley.
The mayor included: McAdams took two cabbages to use for her holiday dinner.
Wiley was also glad that he was able to incorporate two of his summer goals in one project.
“Some of the boys in the neighborhood, I took them in the garden and taught them about gardening and vegetables,” he said.
The high schooler was surprised that young boys would want to learn about gardening. But they did.
“I thought they would think it was uncool or a joke,” he said. “It makes me feel good to be an example to young black males.”
Wiley feels like the whole community has rallied around him. “Everyone has known me since I was little,” he said. “I think this makes them proud of me and shows that I care about the community.”
For the fall, the gardeners were a little late getting started, but Wiley is already prepping for the garden’s second season. Wiley and his team will begin planting their spring garden in early- to mid-March.
“I am hoping spring will be a whole lot better looking and performing,” he said. “I want to see more vegetables and some fruit this time.”
Wiley acknowledges that this project has taken a team of community members both from Baptist Town and throughout Greenwood.
“I have met a lot of people, worked with gardeners, and we have brought healthy stuff to the table for people,” he said. “I was a rookie. I learned as I went from everyone who helped.”
• Contact Andrea Hall at ahall@gwcommonwealth.com.
