Stephen Ritz, the founder of Green Bronx Machine, is a Bronx native and educator in the public school system, who has seen how an excess of cheap, unhealthy food can negatively impact a community. After his students responded positively to a classes flower planting project, he decided to start growing vegetables to empower the kids to eat better and learn skills that could give them real job prospects. This quickly blossomed into the powerhouse that is the Green Bronx Machine, a nonprofit organization geared toward empowering k-12 students to grow their own food. The organization’s National Health, Wellness and Learning Center is a state of the art facility with a year round commercial indoor vertical farm and food processing kitchen with solar and alternative energy generators. Together, Stephen and his students have grown 40,000 pounds of vegetables, but he enthusiastically insists their favorite crops include healthy students, high performing schools, graduates, registered voters, living wage jobs and members of the middle class. Keep listening to hear Stephen’s detailed stories about how healthy, plant-based foods have completely changed his student’s lives, and his hopes for how the Green Bronx Machine movement can inspire similar transformations across the world! Support the Podcast for as low as $5 per month: https://www.patreon.com/eftp  Show notes for this episode: https://eftp.co/stephen-ritz   More about Eat For The Planet: https://eftp.co/ Newsletter signup: hhttps://eftp.co/newsletter Follow us on Facebook and Instagram Follow Nil Zacharias on Twitter