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Good afternoon.

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I am not a farmer.

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(Laughter)

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I'm not. I'm a parent, I'm a resident and I'm a teacher.

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And this is my world.

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And along the way I've started noticing --

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I'm on my third generation of kids --

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that they're getting bigger.

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They're getting sicker.

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In addition to these complexities,

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I just learned that 70 percent of the kids that I see

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who are labeled learning disabled would not have been

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had they had proper prenatal nutrition.

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The realities of my community are simple. They look like this.

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Kids should not have to grow up and look at things like this.

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And as jobs continue to leave my community,

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and energy continues to come in, be exported in,

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it's no wonder that really some people refer to the South Bronx as a desert.

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But I'm the oldest sixth grader you'll ever meet,

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so I get up every day with this tremendous amount of enthusiasm

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that I'm hoping to share with you all today.

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And with that note, I come to you with this belief

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that kids should not have to leave their communities

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to live, learn and earn in a better one.

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So I'm here to tell you a story about me

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and this wall that I met outside, which I'm now bringing inside.

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And it starts with three people.

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The crazy teacher -- that's me on the left,

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I dress up pretty, thank you, my wife, I love you for getting a good suit --

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my passionate borough president

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and a guy named George Irwin from Green Living Technologies

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who helped me with my class

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and helped me get involved with this patented technology.

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But it all starts with seeds in classrooms,

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in my place, which looks like this.

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And I'm here today hoping that my reach will exceed my grasp.

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And that's really what this is all about.

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And it starts with incredible kids like this,

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who come early and stay late.

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All of my kids are either IEP or ELL learners,

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most come with a lot of handicaps,

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most are homeless and many are in foster care.

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Almost all of my kids live below poverty.

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But with those seeds, from day one, we are growing in my classroom,

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and this is what it looks like in my classroom.

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And you see how attentive these kids are to these seeds.

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And then you notice that those seeds become farms across the Bronx that look like this.

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But again, I am not a farmer. I'm a teacher.

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And I don't like weeding, and I don't like back-breaking labor.

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So I wanted to figure out how I could get this kind of success

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into something small, like this,

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and bring it into my classroom so that handicapped kids could do it,

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kids who didn't want to be outside could do it,

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and everyone could have access.

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So I called George Irwin, and what do you know?

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He came to my class and we built an indoor edible wall.

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And what we do is we partner it with authentic learning experiences,

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private-based learning.

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And lo and behold, we gave birth to

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the first edible wall in New York City.

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So if you're hungry, get up and eat.

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You can do it right now. My kids play cow all the time.

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Okay? But we were just getting started,

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the kids loved the technology,

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so we called up George and we said, "We gotta learn more!"

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Now, Mayor Bloomberg, thank you very much, we no longer need work permits,

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which comes with slices and bonded contractors -- we're available for you --

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We decided to go to Boston.

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And my kids, from the poorest congressional district in America,

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became the first to install a green wall,

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designed by a computer, with real-live learning tools,

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21 stories up -- if you're going to go visit it,

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it's on top of the John Hancock building.

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But closer to home, we started installing these walls in schools

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that look like this with lighting like that,

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real LED stuff, 21st-century technology.

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And what do you know? We made 21st century money,

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and that was groundbreaking. Wow!

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This is my harvest, people.

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And what do you do with this food? You cook it!

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And those are my heirloom students making heirloom sauce,

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with plastic forks, and we get it into the cafeteria,

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and we grow stuff and we feed our teachers.

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And that is the youngest nationally certified

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workforce in America with our Bronx Borough President.

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And what'd we do then? Well, I met nice people like you,

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and they invited us to the Hamptons.

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So I call this "from South Bronx to Southampton."

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And we started putting in roofs that look like this,

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and we came in from destitute neighborhoods

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to start building landscape like this, wow! People noticed.

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And so we got invited back this past summer,

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and we actually moved into the Hamptons,

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payed 3,500 dollars a week for a house, and we learned how to surf.

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And when you can do stuff like this --

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These are my kids putting in this technology,

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and when you can build a roof that looks like that

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on a house that looks like that

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with sedum that looks like this,

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this is the new green graffiti.

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So, you may wonder what does a wall like this

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really do for kids, besides changing landscapes and mindsets?

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Okay, I'm going to tell you what it does.

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It gets me to meet incredible contractors like this,

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Jim Ellenberger from Ellenberger Services.

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And this is where it becomes true triple bottom line.

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Because Jim realized that these kids, my future farmers,

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really had the skills he needed to build affordable housing

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for New Yorkers, right in their own neighborhood.

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And this is what my kids are doing, making living wage.

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Now, if you're like me, you live in a building, there are seven guys

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out of work looking to manage a million dollars.

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I don't have it. But if you need a toilet fixed

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or, you know, some shelving, I gotta wait six months

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for an appointment with someone who drives a much nicer car than me.

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That's the beauty of this economy.

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But my kids are now licensed and bonded in trade.

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And that's my first student to open up, the first in his family to have a bank account.

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This immigrant student is the first one in his family to use an ATM.

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And this is the true triple bottom line,

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because we can take neighborhoods that were abandoned and destitute

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and turn them into something like this with interiors like this.

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Wow! People noticed. And notice they did.

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So CNN called, and we were delighted to have them come to our farmer's market.

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And then when Rockefeller Center said, NBC,

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could you put this thing up on the walls? We were delighted.

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But this, I show you, when kids from the poorest congressional district in America

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can build a 30-foot by 15-foot wall,

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design it, plant it and install it in the heart of New York City,

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that's a true "sí se puede" moment.

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Really scholastic, if you ask me.

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But this is not a Getty image.

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That's a picture I took of my Bronx Borough President,

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addressing my kids in his house, not the jailhouse,

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making them feel a part of it.

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That's our State Senator Gustavo Rivera and Bob Bieder,

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coming to my classroom to make my kids feel important.

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And when the Bronx Borough President shows up

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and the State Senator comes to our class,

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believe you me, the Bronx can change attitudes now.

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We are poised, ready, willing and able

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to export our talent and diversity in ways we've never even imagined.

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And when the local senator gets on the scale in public

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and says he's got to lose weight, so do I!

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And I tell you what, I'm doing it and so are the kids.

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Okay? And then celebrities started.

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Produce Pete can't believe what we grow.

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Lorna Sass came and donated books.

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Okay? We're feeding seniors.

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And when we realized that we were growing for food justice in the South Bronx,

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so did the international community.

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And my kids in the South Bronx were repped in

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the first international green roof conference.

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And that's just great.

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Except what about locally?

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Well, we met this woman, Avis Richards, with the Ground Up Campaign.

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Unbelievable! Through her, my kids,

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the most disenfranchised and marginalized,

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were able to roll out 100 gardens to New York City public schools.

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That's triple bottom line! Okay?

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A year ago today, I was invited to the New York Academy of Medicine.

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I thought this concept of designing a strong and healthy New York

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made sense, especially when the resources were free.

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So thank you all and I love them.

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They introduced me to the New York City Strategic Alliance for Health,

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again, free resources, don't waste them.

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And what do you know? Six months later,

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my school and my kids were awarded the first ever

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high school award of excellence for creating a healthy school environment.

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The greenest class in New York City.

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But more importantly is my kids learned to get,

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they learned to give.

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And we took the money that we made from our farmer's market,

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and started buying gifts for the homeless

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and for needy around the world.

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So we started giving back.

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And that's when I realized that the greening of America

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starts first with the pockets, then with the heart

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and then with the mind.

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So we were onto something, and we're still onto something.

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And thank God Trinity Wall Street noticed,

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because they gave us the birth of Green Bronx Machine.

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We're 3,000 strong right now.

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And what does it really do?

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It teaches kids to re-vision their communities,

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so when they grow up in places like this, they can imagine it like this.

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And my kids, trained and certified --

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Ma, you get the tax abatement. Thank you, Mayor Bloomberg --

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can take communities that look like this and convert them into things that look like that,

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and that to me, people, is another true "sí se puede" moment.

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Now, how does it start? It starts in schools.

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No more little Knicks and little Nets.

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Group by broccoli, group by your favorite vegetable,

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something you can aspire to.

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Okay? And these are my future farmers of America,

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growing up in Brook Park on 141st Street,

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the most migrant community in America.

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When tenacious little ones learn how to garden like this,

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it's no wonder we get fruit like that.

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And I love it! And so do they.

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And we're building teepees in neighborhoods that were burning down.

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And that's a true "sí se puede" moment.

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And again, Brook Park feeds hundreds of people

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without a food stamp or a fingerprint.

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The poorest congressional district in America,

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the most migratory community in America, we can do this.

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Bissel Gardens is cranking out food in epic proportions,

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moving kids into an economy they never imagined.

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Now, somewhere over the rainbow, my friends,

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is the South Bronx of America. And we're doing it.

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How does it start? Well, look at Jose's attention to detail.

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Thank God Omar knows that carrots come from the ground,

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and not aisle 9 at the supermarket

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or through a bullet-proof window or through a piece of styrofoam.

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And when Henry knows that green is good, so do I.

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And when you expand their palates, you expand their vocabulary.

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And most importantly, when you put big kids together with little kids,

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you get the big fat white guy out of the middle, which is cool,

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and you create this kind of accountability amongst peers, which is incredible.

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God, I'm going to run out of time, so I've gotta keep it moving.

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But this is my weekly paycheck for kids; that's our green graffiti.

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This is what we're doing.

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And behold the glory and bounty that is Bronx County.

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Nothing thrills me more than to see kids pollinating plants instead of each other.

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I gotta tell you, I'm a protective parent.

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But those kids are the kids who are now putting

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pumpkin patches on top of trains.

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We're also designing coin ponds for the rich and affluent.

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We're also becoming children of the corn,

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creating farms in the middle of Fordham Road for awareness

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and window bottles out of garbage.

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Now I don't expect every kid to be a farmer,

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but I expect you to read about it, write about it, blog about it, offer outstanding customer service.

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I expect them to be engaged, and man, are they!

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So that's my incredible classroom, that's the food.

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Where does it go? Zero miles to plate, right down into the cafeteria.

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Or more importantly, to local shelters,

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where most of our kids are getting one to two meals a day.

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And we're stepping it up.

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No Air Jordans were ever ruined on my farm.

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And in his day, a million dollar gardens and incredible installations.

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Let me tell you something, people.

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This is a beautiful moment.

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Black field, brown field, toxic waste field, battlefield --

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we're proving in the Bronx that you can grow anywhere, on cement.

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And we take orders for flowers. I'm putting the bake sale to shame.

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We take orders now. I'm booking for the spring.

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And these were all grown from seeds. We're learning everything.

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And again, when you can take kids from backgrounds as diverse

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as this to do something as special as this,

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we're really creating a moment.

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Now, you may ask about these kids.

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Forty percent attendance to 93 percent attendance.

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All start overage and under-credit.

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They are now, my first cohort is all in college, earning a living wage.

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The rest are scheduled to graduate this June.

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Happy kids, happy families, happy colleagues.

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Amazed people. The glory and bounty that is Bronx County.

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Let's talk about mint. Where is my mint?

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I grow seven kinds of mint in my class.

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Mojitos, anybody? I'll be at Telepan later.

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But, understand this is my intellectual Viagra.

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Ladies and gentlemen, I gotta move quick, but understand this:

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The borough that gave us baggy pants and funky fresh beats

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is becoming home to the organic ones.

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My green [unclear] 25,000 pounds of vegetables,

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I'm growing organic citizens, engaged kids.

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So help us go from this to this.

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Self-sustaining entities, 18 months return on investment,

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plus we're paying people living wage and health benefits,

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while feeding people for pennies on the dollar.

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Martin Luther King said that people need to be uplifted with dignity.

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So here in New York, I urge you, my fellow Americans,

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to help us make America great again.

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It's simple. Share your passion.

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It's real easy. Go see these two videos, please.

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One got us invited to the White House, one's a recent incarnation.

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And most importantly, get the biggest bully out of schools.

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This has got to go tomorrow.

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People, you can all do that.

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Keep kids out of stores that look like this.

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Make them a healthy plate,

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especially if you can pick it off the wall in your own classroom -- delicioso!

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Model good behavior. Get them to a green cart.

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Big kids love strawberries and bananas.

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Teach them entrepreneurship. Thank God for GrowNYC.

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Let them cook. Great lunch today, let them do culinary things.

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But most importantly, just love them.

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Nothing works like unconditional love.

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So, my good friend Kermit said it's not easy being green.

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It's not. I come from a place where kids can buy

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35 flavors of blunt wrap at any day of the moment,

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where ice cream freezers are filled with slushy malt liquor.

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Okay? My dear friend Majora Carter once told me,

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we have everything to gain and nothing to lose.

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So here, and at a time when we've gone from

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the audacity to hope to hope for some audacity,

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I urge you to do something.

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I urge you to do something.

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Right now, we're all tadpoles,

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but I urge you to become a big frog and take that big, green leap.

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I don't care if you're on the left, on the right, up the middle, wherever.

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Join me. Use -- I've got a lot of energy. Help me use it.

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We can do something here.

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And along the way, please take time to smell the flowers,

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especially if you and your students grew them.

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I'm Steve Ritz, this is Green Bronx Machine.

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I've got to say thank you to my wife and family, for my kids,

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thank you for coming every day, and for my colleagues,

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believing and supporting me.

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We are growing our way into a new economy.

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Thank you, God bless you and enjoy the day. I'm Steve Ritz.

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Sí se puede!

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(Applause)