In the Ted Talk below, Majora Carter intertwines eye-opening social facts with her personal story of creating positive change in her community in a compelling way. Her dream was to create green space in the South Bronx to fight the neighborhoods environmental degradation that, in her opinion, “begets social degradation.”

After college she returned to the South Bronx and started volunteering at the Point, another non-profit in the South Bronx, where she learned who the decision-makers in NYC were.

Her proactive efforts were awarded with a $10,000 seed grant from the Parks Department in the late 90s to create an illegal dump into a green space. In 2006, after leveraging her seed money, she made the Hunts Point Riverside Park worth $3 million dollars. Carter went on to found Sustainable South Bronx, a non-for profit focused on cleaning up the neighborhood and creating new “green collar” jobs.

Carter created a collation and pushed her agenda through from a grassroots level with little resources. Her dreams stem from her passion but her success stems from her ability to build an idea into a reality by creating a volunteer coalition that pushed for a common-cause.

Please watch her talk on her efforts to rejuvenate the South Bronx: