Community remembers Washtenaw County farming program founder Melvin Parson
Washtenaw County, Michigan, is mourning the loss of a beloved difference maker dedicated to giving people a second chance.
People are coming together all week to remember the way We The People Opportunity Farm founder, Melvin Parson, inspired kindness and change, while also providing the ingredients for many of the area's well-known restaurants.
Parson died unexpectedly on March 5. The cause of death is unknown.
CBS News Detroit spoke to those he inspired most to learn how his legacy lives on even after his passing.
Parson devoted his time to providing jobs and changing the narrative for those leaving incarceration. His legacy lives on with those he helped find a path forward, just as he did.
"I don't know if humble and humility was enough to describe how he moved," said close friend Darryl Johnson.
Johnson came back to Ypsilanti to remember Melvin, who he says redefined how people should view those leaving the prison system.
"A person came up to me and told me how their life changed on the farm, and how she's on a journey now directly related to the change that happened to her on that farm," he said.
Friends say that Parson's Opportunity Farm was a place that grew crops and cultivated a sense of purpose for formerly incarcerated men and women, so they had the skills to get their second chance.
"So that's the real work is that the soil of people's lives gets refurbished and revitalized in a way that they sprout out and bring on plants of their own lives," Johnson said.
It wasn't just friends, but also others in the social justice and urban farming workspace who are remembering his impact.
"His vision for what he wanted to see in the world was greater than himself, so I follow in his footsteps in that way, to make sure that the work that I'm doing is not about me, but the impact it's having on people around me," said Shane Bernardo, the Michigan State University Organic Farmer Training Program Detroit site lead.
"He definitely made a space for folks like him, and not like him, to find their place," said Keep Growing Detroit co-director Rosebud Schneider.
It's not just the farm's impact on people that will continue to carry on his legacy, but it's also the produce grown there that's served at places like Zingerman's, Frita Batidos, and others you might have heard of that will do the same.
