Detroit’s Urban Beekeepers are Transforming the City’s Vacant Lots | Short Film Showcase
Detroit is a place of innovators, creatives. It's a great place to come and start over again. I think it's definitely important for people who belong to that community to kind of help rebuild it.
During the crisis and during the foreclosure and a bankruptcy of Detroit, a lot of people lost their homes and moved out. Unfortunately, within the area, the city is not building any new homes. By activating these vacant spaces and transforming them into urban farms or bee farms, we're able to have vast amounts of fresh vegetables that our bees and our partners can cross-pollinate to provide for the community.
What we do is transform Detroit vacant lots into an urban bee farm.
All my life, I have been born and raised here in the Motor City. My grandmother would always create home remedies whenever me and my brother would get sick. So, when I got sick in December, I went back to those methods. I came across the power of local raw honey from a local store in Ferndale, Michigan. When that word got out, we were like, “Okay, let’s study more about this honey and its medicinal properties.” Since we started, it has been the year of yes. Opportunities come; we say yes, and it has helped us get to this point.
We're definitely changing the typical stereotypes of beekeeping, particularly here in America. You typically don't see too many beekeepers of color. By my entry, I'm gonna help inspire others that they can do the same thing. It's important to expose our children to something they might not be familiar with. For one, we never know where it might take them. A lot of these children have never even seen the honeycomb before, and they have very little knowledge about bees. So, it feels great to educate them on the importance of honeybee conservation.
Growing up as a kid, it wasn't cool to be into science, or to keep bees, or to be outside in nature. So, we really did not see a lot of those positive figures of people out there. I think it's important for someone like me to be in a position of leadership to inspire other people that it's cool to learn about science. It's cool to give back to your environment and your community.
When people find out about our organization, they're like, “Wait, you're in Detroit?” The shock value is incredible when we tell them that we're beekeepers. They look at us like, “Why?” You don't have to have a million dollars in your bank account to start an exciting idea. Go for it!
Starting a nonprofit organization within the community helps inspire others to feel that they can do the same thing. It's important to pass on this education to our generation so they can create a better future for themselves. There was a problem that we saw in our city. There was a problem that we saw with our honeybees. What we're doing here is solving both of those problems.