Today we’d like to introduce you to Julius Buzzard.
Hi Julius, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
I didn’t grow up thinking I’d run a food nonprofit. I grew up thinking about justice.
Food turned out to be one of the clearest lenses I found for examining why some communities have everything, and others are left to make do. When I encountered food sovereignty, the idea that communities deserve real power over their food systems, not just access to whatever the market leaves behind, something clicked.
My path to Growing Hope wound through faith community work and community organizing. I joined because the organization was already living out what I believed: that food is a human right.
Over time, my role deepened. Today, I lead the organization, teach Food Literacy for All at the University of Michigan, sit on the MSU AgBioResearch Advisory Council, and stay connected to faith community work that keeps asking the same underlying question in a different register: who has power, who doesn’t, and what are we going to do about it?
I didn’t plan this path. But I can’t imagine a more meaningful one.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Not even close, and I’d be suspicious of anyone doing this work who said otherwise.
Leading a nonprofit rooted in justice means you’re constantly navigating the gap between the urgency of community need and the slow, grinding reality of institutional funding cycles. You write the grant. You wait. You write it again. Meanwhile, real people need real things right now.
There’s also the particular tension of doing equity work inside systems that weren’t designed for equity. Accessing capital for community-owned food infrastructure requires extraordinary effort and creativity when the beneficiaries are low-income communities and BIPOC entrepreneurs. We’ve had to be relentless.
What keeps me going is the same thing that drew me in: the community itself. Ypsilanti is tenacious. The people here refuse to wait for someone else to build what they need. That energy is contagious, and on the hard days, it’s what I lean on.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
I am the Executive Director at Growing Hope, a food sovereignty nonprofit in Ypsilanti that operates an urban farm, runs the Ypsilanti Farmers Market, supports community gardeners, and runs a food entrepreneurship pipeline that takes people from first idea to viable business.
What I specialize in is the intersection of food systems, economic justice, and community power.
What Growing Hope is known for is building infrastructure that actually belongs to the community it serves. Seventeen food businesses have graduated from our incubator into storefronts, food trucks, and co-packing facilities. We’ve distributed thousands of pounds of produce, given away tens of thousands of seedlings, and supported dozens of community gardens.
I’m proud of our ever-growing community of growers who show up and support one another in a multitude of ways. What sets us apart is that we don’t treat food access as charity.
We love surprises, fun facts and unexpected stories. Is there something you can share that might surprise us?
Most people know me through the lens of food systems; the farm, the market, the kitchen. What surprises them is that I came up through youth development and education, working directly with young people long before I ever thought seriously about food infrastructure.
The through line between that early work and what I do now is clearer to me every year. It was always about investing in people that the systems had underestimated.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.growinghope.net
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/growingthehope/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/growinghope
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/growing-hope/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@growinghopeypsi
