Planting Justice (PJ) was founded in Oakland in 2009 with the mission to empower people impacted by mass incarceration and other social inequalities with the skills and resources to cultivate food sovereignty, economic justice, and community healing. Since its inception, PJ has designed and implemented culturally relevant and empowering educational, informational, and outreach activities and programs on the topics of waste reduction, composting, artistic-salvaging, food justice and security, and urban agriculture and gardening that directly impact more than 6,500 youth and adults per year in Alameda County and its surrounding areas. PJ provides living-wage careers to a staff of twenty-eight (28) that includes 12 formerly incarcerated individuals. Over the first 9 years of its existence, PJ has grown to invest more than $2,100,000 per year in reducing waste through local food and economic justice education and service programs in Alameda County, with 50-70% of funding each year coming from innovative, revenue-generating fee-for-service programs and a diverse and steadily growing base of individual local contributors. We operate three social enterprises, a landscaping service that has built 450 edible gardens in Oakland, 5-acre food forest farm, and a 2-acre Nursery, which are at the core of an “ecosystem” of projects, programs and activities that provide employment opportunities and training to community residents and formerly incarcerated people, increase access to nutritious and fresh produce, promote healthy nutrition and self-care practices, preserve and protect the environment, and strengthen our communities’ capacity to take control of their lives and address the myriad challenges they face. Our work and business model have been recognized at a regional and national level, as evidenced by an article published in the Business Section of the New York Times: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/17/business/urban-farming-exconvicts-recidivism.html