On the day he almost died, Kimbal Musk had food on the brain. The Internet startup talent and restauranteur had just arrived in Jackson Hole from a conference where chef Jamie Oliver had spoken about the benefits of healthy eating. This was something Musk thought about a lot—how he might make a difference to the food industry—but beyond expanding his farm-to-table movement along with his restaurant, Musk hadn't yet broken the code. Then he went sailing down a snowy slope and fell over, breaking his neck. The left side of his body was paralyzed.
Musk eventually made a full recovery, but it involved spending two months on his back, which gave him plenty of time to come up with a plan. Since then, he has launched an initiative to put" learning gardens" in public schools across America; attracted Generation Z to the farming profession by changing shipping containers into high-tech, data-driven, year-round farms; and this year, is kicking off a new campaign to create one million at-home gardens.
Aimed at reaching low-income families, the Million Gardens Movement was inspired by the pandemic, as both a desire to feel more connected to nature and food insecurity have been at the forefront of so many people's lives. "We were getting a lot of inquiries about gardening from people that had never gardened before," says Musk." People were looking to garden for a bunch of reasons: to supplement their budget, to improve the nutritional quality of their diets, or just to cure the boredom that came with the lockdown."
The program offer s free garden kits that can be grown indoors or outdoors, and will be distributed through schools that Musk's non-profit, Big Green, has already partnered with. It also offers free courses on how to get the garden growing and fresh seeds and materials for the changing growing seasons." I grew up in the projects when I was young, in what we now call food deserts," says EVE, one of the many celebrities who have teamed up with the organization to encourage people to pick up a free garden." What I love about this is that it's not difficult. We are all able to grow something."
