Senior Park Ambassador for Friends of James Weldon Johnson Park

“I had just come down from Chicago. A relationship, a marriage, had ended. I was living in a shelter. I had to walk through the Park to the library, so I turned back around and noticed the Park office. I spoke with Damien Lamar, told him I was looking for work and I was in the shelter. I didn’t hide that. I really didn’t know if I was going to be given a chance or not, but I ended up getting an email saying he wanted me to come work for him. January 11, 2016. That was the beginning of my new life.

When I get to redo new, fresh plants, that’s my favorite moment. I can’t wait for spring to come so I can start working on replenishing these, nursing them back to life. Planting. Trying to make it beautiful out here.

My daddy liked to plant stuff. My granddaddy liked to cut yards, trim hedges. They were both into this. And I had the eye for it without realizing I had the eye for it.

See those trees right there? When they start blooming, they’ve got a nice purplish-green leaf on them. Those trees actually came from my daddy’s yard. When he passed away, my mama was redoing the front lawn. I put two of them in the back seat of my car and drove them to the Park. The trees produced seeds, and they started growing.

It just kind of connects me to my roots. It makes me think about my dad and my granddad a lot when I’m out here working, because my love of landscaping – that’s originally where it came from.”

Photos by Toni Smailagic