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RUTHY
RUTHY
Ruthy grew up in Appalachia in a family and community that had a strong tradition of growing their own food. She is well known around Northampton through her work with Pedal People, a worker-owned cooperative that she and her partner started two decades ago. Using people power and bicycles that have trailers on back they haul three hundred pounds of waste at a time!
“Being a trash hauler I see so much that's thrown away…I can't help but notice.”
“Where I'm from in Appalachia…we grew almost everything that we ate…I had that upbringing and those values were instilled in me. There's a strong tradition of people growing all their own food and now it's all stuff bought from Walmart."
Check out some interview excerpts below:
Check out some interview excerpts below:
"If I were in charge [I’d like to see] access to be able to grow your own food. I think it should be a human right…I wish that everyone had the access to grow food so they understood where it came from..because the food is such a process. Instead of food just being a consumer product on the grocery store shelf.
"It's very rare to see young people having gardens, it's much more common to see people getting food at Walmart…even though they live in a place with lots of land [to garden] and could be growing fresh foods.”
“One time I was collecting apples on the street in front of Abundance Farm and a friend walked by and I said, ‘Hey, you want an apple?’ He looked at me and he was like, ‘you eat those?’ And ‘I said, yeah, they're good you want one?’ And he said, No, I get mine from the store. I think there's people that are so trained by the expectations around store-bought fruit that looks perfect, that they have fears that something's not safe when it doesn't look perfect…’there's this sort of pop culture… that can get into people's heads…A whole generation lost to fear."
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