Arthur's Earth Sanctuary will include a vegetable garden, a composting area, a yoga pavilion and flower garden.(Courtesy of Arthur's Earth Sanctuary)Driving past Roy Wilkins Avenue in Louisville, there are fewer places to find quality fruits and vegetables than in other parts of the city. Now one ma n from Louisville is hoping to bring more whole foods to the West End and provide a little bit of tranquility along the way.Dre Smith is a west Louisville native and founder of Arthur’s Earth Sanctuary in the Russell neighborhood. What is currently a vacant plot at 3125 Vermont Ave., Smith said will become a community garden, yoga pavilion and gathering space for the community.LPM’s Giselle Rhoden spoke with Smith about how his upbringing and learning yoga inspired him to give back to his neighborhood.This interview was edited for length and clarity.What inspired you to decide to step in and address the food insecurity in the West End?Dre Smith: We know that this is a form of systemic injustice. And I stopped eating meat about six years ago. I have to drive to the Highlands, or I have to go to Nulu. If I go to Kroger and go over to the freezer with the berries in it, there's fruit flies and gnats flying around all the produce. But I know that peppers, potatoes, carrots, lettuce, herbs, spices, these things are enough for a meal. That's an example of what we would like to grow at the sanctuary, and also plants that are there for the sake of attracting pollinator species. I want to see some bees buzzing around and some butterflies and just contribute some beauty to the block as well. So in addition to the agricultural contribution, we want to add some aesthetics to the environment.Where did the name come from? And how did you decide where to put this space?DS: You would probably imagine that Arthur literally is the person that the space is named after, which is true. Our Arthur could be a Black man serving a 17 year sentence for a non-violent crime. And my uncle Arthur is the latter. Arthur is just any marginalized being. In America today, I see that poor is the new Black. The lower class that's the slave ship. So any version of that, whether it be, oppressed wives in a domestic situation, or immigrants being oppressed and detained or just Black people in the community being profiled and suffering that systemic injustice that we've been known to suffer historically for the last few centuries.So if we're going to do this thing and we're going to ask for support, we're going to ask for the village to get behind it. I want it to be beautiful. We deserve beauty. We deserve aesthetic pleasure on our end of town. And even if you never get out of your car, you can look over and say, “Man, I'm glad that's there.”You're also planning a yoga pavilion in this space, and you are a yoga instructor as well. So how does yoga and meditation fit in here?DS: Arthur's Earth Sanctuary is a space of growth and healing, literally and figuratively. I'm from the hood. We've come a long way, but I'm a street dude. Everyone that I grew up with, most of them are dead. And if they're not dead, they're in prison somewhere. I lost my big brother. He was murdered in our front yard in 2010. He's one of a dozen that I have lost to gun violence, another form of systemic injustice that is a part of our pressurized human experience on my side of town. Finding the will to carry on in a meaningful way, and not acting out of vengeance and not acting out of anger, dedicating my being to change instead of resentment. But yoga gives me the strength to not hold on to it, to just let it have its moment, honor it and acknowledge it when it comes and let it go.That's how I got into teaching the practice. I wanted to make it more accessible to people of color. Yoga in the western world is a very whitewashed, very gate kept practice. And we are very apprehensive, meaning people of color, especially Black men. If my community is going to be able to reap the benefits of this practice, if it's not coming from me, it's gonna have to come from someone that at least looks like me, that shares our heritage and cultural background.On February 22 you're hosting the Groove and Grow Fest at Portal. So what is this all about? And what are you hoping comes from this?DS: It's the first fundraiser. We have seven musical acts: Ruby Waits, Dreamie Daze, Cowboy Preachers Club, Lacey Guthrie, Bendigo Fletcher, Future Killer, 10th Street Dre Ministry of Truth. We have three yoga instructors. And after every two acts, there'll be a half-hour yoga intermission.We want to start building our plant beds as soon as we're sure that Kentucky's winter is done. The funding is secured for phase one, but we still need help. We're getting it going within the next four to six weeks a month from now, and we'll begin getting out there and planting some dirt. ...read more read less