- [Narrator] It's a sunny day in San Francisco.

Perfect for digging in the dirt in these raised garden beds at the Willie Mays Boys and Girls Club.

- I'm planting onions next to the strawberries and I hope that the insects won't mess with the strawberries 'cause they don't like the scent.

- [Narrator] For the last three years, Isaiah Powell has been working with these students in an afterschool program to teach them about everything from composting to what freshly grown produce tastes like, straight from the earth.

- I hope that 1, 2, 10, these children at some point in time, but so you know what?

I'm gonna try to grow my own food to supplement or, hey, this doesn't taste like what a tomato's supposed to taste like because I've tasted what it's supposed to taste like.

Is it minty or spicy?

- I got that.

- A little bit minty and spicy.

- There's like two generations removed from people who are very closely connected to agriculture, grandma cooking or growing some turnips or whatever in the backyard to now only eating vegetables from a can.

Two generations.

- Can you eat it?

- Of course you can.

- It's yummy.

- [Narrator] Changing the way that people think about their food is one of Isaiah's missions.

He's the president of Dragon Spunk, an organization that transforms vacant urban lots into green spaces.

He also strives to build community around mobile farmer's markets.

And of course, inspiring the next generation to think about where their food comes from.

- The kids love Mr. Isaiah.

They love his energy.

They love what they bring and get back from the program.

He is all inclusive in this space, and because he's so excited about what he's teaching, they're just as excited to learn.

- I envision a day when a cohort from the Willie Mays Boys and Girls Club will be vendors at the farmer's market.

- [Narrator] It's not so farfetched an idea, especially considering what Isaiah's organization has done.

Just a mile and a half away from the Boys and Girls Club, they took a vacant piece of land that was filled with trash on top of these Caltrain tracks and turned it into an urban garden oasis.

Instead of tires and trash, you'll now find garden beds, bees, baby tad poles and soil that's being remediated.

It's called the Kelly Bird Pollinator sanctuary, inspired by Isaiah's wife, Danielle Fernandez, who goes by the artistic name of Kelly Bird and whose art adorns this space.

On weekends, a mobile farmer's market called Rollin Root from the Agriculture Institute of Marin, comes to the garden to provide fresh produce to the neighborhood.

- [Interviewer] Oh yeah, do you live around here?

- Yes, I'm at the corner.

- Ah, do you come here often?

- Every Saturday.

- Yeah?

- Every Saturday.

- [Interviewer] And why?

- To get fresh food and vegetables.

- When are you actually?

- This is better than the store.

- December 16th.

- Is it?

- Yes, it is.

- [Narrator] The soil here is tainted by lead due to decades of industrialization in this San Francisco neighborhood called Bayview-Hunters Point.

So anything edible has to be grown in garden beds with soil that's brought in.

Isaiah calls himself a steward, a custodian of this quarter acre piece of land.

- Specifically, I am remediating the soil.

That's the intention, to take out the poisons in this soil, to restore the balance in this micro ecosystem here.

- [Narrator] He does that by experimenting with plants, microbes, and fungus that are known for removing toxins from soil.

But perhaps the greater goal is demonstrating to people in this neighborhood that food can be grown here, even if it is in a raised garden bed.

- The garden boxes are a great way for people in toxified areas to grow food, because guess what?

The sun still works here.

So it doesn't have to be a food desert.

- We take what we have here and we embed it into our cooking program, and the children are actually able to eat what they nurture in the garden.

- The seed might not germinate this year or next year, but I want to expose them to a world that I feel like they might not have had full exposure to.

- Another one right there.

- [Narrator] Making the connection between growing your own food and improving your health between fostering community and revitalizing empty spaces is all part of Isaiah's overall vision.

One that embraces the unique challenges and opportunities of urban agriculture making change one quarter acre at a time.