Hannah Wallace

Holly's Committee

I have a short essay in O: the Oprah Magazine's Caregiver's Guide this month about my great aunt Holly. When she was struggling with dementia a decade ago, living on her own on the Upper West Side, a group of family and friends teamed up to take care of her until we could move her into a nearby care facility. This is a much slimmed-down version of a longer piece I had written, but I hope it still offers some guidance to families who are struggling to take care of elderly single relatives. We were lucky that Holly had awesome, watchful neighbors and a dear family friend living just around the corner. (As well as amazingly patient home health aids. God bless them all!) But the pivotal idea that saved us was quite simple, really: a three-ring binder that contained info on Holly's medical history, current medications, account numbers, and social contacts. (Thank you, Perry-Lynn!) If your subscription to O has lapsed (!), you can read my essay here:  Download HollyO

Dropping Fresh Beets

In the October issue of O: the Oprah Magazine, I write about food justice rapper DJ CaveM, who wants to make OGs—organic gardeners—out of Denver youth.
 
DJ Cavem & Rebel Diaz rap about Food Justice (at 3.25 minutes)

“A lot of people in our community say, ‘Diabetes runs in my family,‘ And we’re like, ‘No it’s because no one RUNS in your family!’” says 27-year-old Denver rapper/gardener/activist DJ CaveM to a packed TEDxYouth conference in Denver. The line elicits titters from the crowd—but diet-related disease is no laughing matter for DJ CaveM.

Growing up in Five Points, Denver, DJ CaveM—whose given name is Ietef Vita—passed a youth penitentiary, a fast food joint, and a liquor store every day on his walk to school. The scenery in the neighborhood hasn’t changed much since then—and obesity and type 2 diabetes rates are rampant in the community as well as in Vita’s extended family.

Vita, whose great grandfather was a sharecropper, is determined to change this pattern. Armed with a Vitamix blender, a turntable, and wickedly clever rap lyrics, he and his wife Neambe visit Denver public schools bearing a message of environmental activism and food justice. In their workshop, “Going Green, Living Bling: Redefining the Image of Wealth,” the Vitas explain Big Food’s culpability in the obesity epidemic and teach kids how to grow organic food—and green jobs—in the inner city. (“I tell them, ‘Yes, you can do this—grow food and legally sell it at the farmers market and everybody can buy it!”) While sipping kale smoothies and tasting quinoa for the first time, the kids are won over by Vita’s lyrics, delivered as they are in a charismatic package. In “Food Justice” he raps:

To start a family
You need some land
Some clean water
And a garden plan
You can use a shovel
But I like a hoe
Drop the seed down
Let the water flow

In their Going Green day camp this summer, the Vitas asked kids for help composing a remix of “Hot Cheetos and Takis,” a popular music video about the processed snacks—made with genetically modified ingredients and red dye No. 40—which are marketed heavily in low-income black neighborhoods. 

“We’re calling the remix ‘Brown Rice and Broccoli,” says Vita. “We like to keep it really fresh.”

 

A Vineyard in the Inner City

Mansfield Frazier at the Vineyards of Château Hough in Cleveland

Last April I was in Cleveland writing a story about City Councilman Joe Cimperman and the city's vigorous urban gardening movement. While everyone else around the city was taking vacant lots and turning them into high-yield vegetable gardens or community orchards (awesome enough!), Mansfield Frazier, a reformed ex-con who lived in the hard-hit neighborhood of Hough, has reclaimed a weed-choked lot near his house and turned it into a vineyard. (Nevermind that he knew nothing about vineyard management or wine-making. "I tell people I'm an expert at taking a cork out of the bottle," Frazier, a devoted wine aficionado, told me.) As I interviewed urban farmers, restaurant owners, and city officials, Frazier's name kept popping up. So I decided to pay him a visit.

Though it's less than a mile from the world-renowned Cleveland Clinic, Hough is a poor neighborhood with lots of boarded-up homes and empty lots. It's the kind of place where teenage boys saunter across a busy street without looking to see if a car is coming. So it was surprising—and delightful—to come across a meticulously groomed vineyard on the corner of East 66th and Hough Ave. As I sat on a bench with Frazier, chatting with him about his ambitious plans for the neighborhood (which include a bio-cellar, a wine bar, and possibly even an indoor fish farm), half a dozen people honked as they drove by, waving or giving an enthusiastic thumb's up. 

I immediately pitched Frazier and his vineyard to O: the Oprah Magazine. My article is in the November issue, page 46.

The boarded-up Victorian in the background will soon be a biocellar

Mr. Moms

(Click to enlarge image).