We’re pleased to feature this post from volunteer, client, and donor Leonard Edwards. Leonard was recently featured on WAMU’s Metro Connection report on our rooftop garden (transcript here), and these days he can be found up on our roof several times a week — one of our most active volunteers. Read his story below.

I was raised to be self sufficient. Pull yourself up by your boot laces, dust yourself off, and stand up on your own two feet. When you get into a tight situation, think; there is always a solution.

But in that hazy, humid summer evening of ‘06, I was at a real low point in my life. I found myself in a situation that was totally alien to me. I needed legal advice and I needed it fast.

I’d been fired abruptly — and to make matters worse, when I went to apply for unemployment compensation, my boss tried to claim that I’d quit. So I was facing unemployment without compensation. Now, I am not a young man any more, so it’s not like there was another job around the corner. I found myself asking these new questions: how am I gonna pay rent? How am I gonna eat?

I needed help. A friend told me to try Bread for the City. I was skeptical at first. I was scared and confused, even desperate, and wary that someone might try to take advantage of my emotional state. And I did not know whether a place called Bread for the City could help me with this predicament.

Well as it turned out, the staff was professional, courteous, and sincere. I was not looked down on or judged. I knew immediately that this place was not out to get my money; that I was safe here. (In fact I thought that I had died and gone to heaven!) They referred me to the Employment Justice Center in their facility, where I got advice on how to request a hearing — and how to fight for my rights in court.

Though I got my unemployment assistance, I now didn’t have health insurance. So I came back to Bread for the City — this time to be a patient of the medical clinic. And I have to be honest, I was doubtful again. I had this stereotype of what to expect in a community health clinic, to be rushed through without any real care given to you as a person. But I found their medical staff here to be way better than the primary care physician that I had before!

Bread for the City’s staff all go above and beyond the call of duty. As a former Marine, you know that I mean a lot to say that about a group of civilians.

Indeed, because of this experience with Bread for the City, I am proud to have stayed in the family of this special organization. Today, I’m not just a client, but a donor, a volunteer, and more.

So far, I’ve helped build and tend the new rooftop garden. I had some previous experience with gardening – my grandfather had a farm, and my parents had a garden in their backyard. But today I don’t have access to green space, so this was a great opportunity. And I now I’m starting my own garden at home, using the techniques we’re learning about potting and tending the plants.

For instance, this last weekend we learned about all kinds of pest controls. This garden is new and in great shape, but it has bugs just like any other. We made insect repellent with garlic, basil, peppers — that’s all it took! Here we are conditioned to think that we have to go buy chemicals from the store and blast them all over the place, and it turns out we can do it easy, cheap, and chemical-free. We also took aluminum pie pans, painted them with faces, and hung them above our berry bushes to ward off birds.

I had no idea there was so much to learn and do — but now I’m coming to feel like I’m an expert in these things. Next year, I want to go beyond potted plants and build a garden right in my home. I look forward to keep giving back to Bread’s community right here – especially with educating children about how vegetables are grown, and what different foods look like in their natural states (not just the rotting ones on store shelves).

I don’t know where I might be if I had not found Bread for the City. I might be a statistic in a jail cell, like so many others who don’t get the right advice at the crucial time. I can truly say that I love being a client and a volunteer with Bread, and am grateful to have the opportunity to join them in serving our community with dignity and respect.