Al Renner is Garden Master of Solano Canyon Community Garden.  According to Al, the garden makes people feel three things.  “They feel food in their tummy. That's the first thing. Number two, it's an empowerment when they learn when and where and how food grows. And three, learning how to share, because people who grow food, that's what they do, they tend to share.”

Al remembers the day a boy picked and tasted the first raw pea in his life.  He came back the next day and ate an entire plantful.  “You're not going to introduce people to the benefits of gardening by making people plant or pull out weeds.  You reach them through the stomach and that's the best way to learn to grow food is through your stomach.”

“Once people are hooked on fresh food, then you get in there and garden because you're helping the plants and you're smelling them, and you're breathing in the oxygen that they produce, and you're loving the smell of the soil.”