It started the way most summers do in Stone Mountain, Lithonia, and Decatur — with heat. But this summer, something else was rising alongside the temperatures. At nearly every intersection, young men and boys were out in the blazing sun, holding warm bottles of water, trying to sell whatever they could to make something that resembled a living.

It was hard to look away. And for Nicole Scarlett, community manager at Plant Me Baby, she couldn't.

Something pressed on her heart — not pity, but purpose. Someone has to teach these young men the power they already carry in their own hands. Someone has to show them that their drive, their hustle, their presence at those intersections is not wasted potential — it's redirected potential. They just need a place to put it.

That conviction became Garden Guardians.

Garden Guardians is a summer program designed to take young men and boys out of the heat and into the soil — literally. Through urban gardening, participants learn how to grow their own food, develop structure and discipline, and get introduced to real career opportunities in agriculture. But more than any of that, they get something that every young person deserves: a safe space where an adult shows up for them.

This is not just a gardening program. It's a lifeline dressed in garden gloves.

We are building an alternative — a productive, lucrative, and empowering space where youth and caring adults connect through the act of growing things together. Because when you teach a young man to grow food, you teach him patience. You teach him that what you invest in the ground, you get back. You teach him that his hands have authority.

Your $19 makes it happen. Every $19 donation supports daily meals for our young men, tools they get to take home and keep, educational resources, and access to opportunities that can change the trajectory of a life.

We started small. We started pressed. And we started right here — in our community.

Now we're asking you to grow with us.

Garden Guardians: Growing More Than Food

Empowering young men and women through the soil — building discipline, growing food, and cultivating futures in agriculture.

Team Members