Today we’d like to introduce you to Keyatta Mincey Parker.
Hi Keyatta, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
I grew you in Paynesville Liberia until May of 1990 when we entered into an almost 20-year war, luckily my mom was an American citizen so we were able to seek refuge in Atlanta. My 1st job was in hospitality as a hostess, soon I became a server, then climbed up to bartending, I was a model for a good few years and eventually came back to service, I won some awards, got a lot of recognition and at some point had to start thinking of my end game. I had done every job in a restaurant short of being a GM. After working in the hospitality industry for over 20 years, my vision was to create a community garden where bartenders could grow their own food, herbs, and flowers for themselves, their families, and their restaurants. I wanted a safe haven for bartenders to experience tranquility, enjoy therapeutic gardening experiences, access healthy produce, and maintain a sense of ownership and purpose.
A Sip of Paradise Garden was created in January 2020 as a part of Bombay Sapphire’s Most Imaginative Bartender competition. I was a finalist for Bombay Sapphire’s Most Imaginative Bartender, out of hundreds of others in the US and Cananda, I made top 12, 1 of 5 women, only black person, a big deal. A part of the competition was to develop create outlet outside of bartending, for me, it’s my culture as a proud Liberian woman and gardening. It was something I did with both my American and Liberian grandmothers, I grew up in Liberia eating fresh food, going to the market with my nurse Esther, it was something I wanted to share with my new family, the hospitality industry. I started A Sip of Paradise Garden in January 2020. I enlisted 2 of my friends Rori Robinson and Stephanie Saputo and we got started. The competition was if February and even though I didn’t win 1st place and win the seed money to move forward with the I garden, I made top 3. I came home and wanted to take a year to fundraise, but my team was like no, we had been blessed with a quarter acre of land by Community Farmers Market, let’s go.
As a finalist, I received $5,000 grant from Tales of the Cocktail in partnership with Sapphire as seed money to create the organization. With an in-kind donation of land from the Community Farmers Market in East Atlanta, my team and I are able to serve 35 garden members with gardening workshops and health and wellness sessions during the first year. To date, A Sip of Paradise Garden has attracted over 60 garden members and over 300 members of the broader East Atlanta Village community. In March covid hit, and we are all jobless. It broke a lot of us, and almost me. The garden became of a slice of heaven, we were above to have a place for us to be. With the riots, protesting and mess of covid, it grew bigger than I could have dreamed. We currently have 35 members and the support of an entire workforce.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
This journey has not been straightforward, it has been years of hard work, but I honestly can’t see myself doing anything else with my life today. Philanthropy doesn’t trust black women, so funding has been the biggest struggle, especially as a nonprofit. It’s a niche business, people love the idea and think it’s cool, but they sometimes don’t understand why the hospitality community needs this, I’ve had individuals tell me I should focus on kids, well myself and a few members are parents, you should serve veterans, my husband is a veteran and so are four of our members or this should be for domestic violence survivors I survived an abusive relationship. People can’t seem to shake the narrative that all bartenders are these drunk and wild people when we are not all like that. We have gotten most of our funding from liquor brands which makes sense, but that’s not consistent or sustainable. For a workforce that sustains millions of people, we don’t get that love back, but I have faith that with the hard work the funding will come, and with that, we will have the ability to create more hospitality gardens across the country.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know?
A Sip of Paradise Garden is my baby, as a hospitality professional with a deep passion for gardening and familial roots in Liberia, I developed a love for gardening by picking fruits and flowers in both my grandmother’s yard. As an adult, I managed to infuse my passion for fresh ingredients into creative cocktails that her guests raved about. After all this, I wanted to do something impactful for my community that is so broken right now.
We provide a safe space, wellness activities like yoga, meditation and pilates, we host workshops on gardening, professional and spirits education, volunteer days. We collect coffee grind and bar fruit waste from local restaurants, spent mash from a local brewery to add to our compost. We use that compost in all of our plots and grounds. We are connecting a community. We provide job resources and opportunities to our members to help put money in their pockets, we all have access to fresh food and herbs to better our quality of living, we also donate the extra to local food insecurtiy organizations. Members pay a fee for a growing season, April to December, and we accept membership year-round.
This really all started as a way for me to play in the dirt with my friends, but it has turned into something that is shaping my community. The only requirement to be have worked in hospitality at some point in your life, but we welcome and celebrate with everyone. We are a registered business and 501c3 in the state of Georgia, and we survive off funding from grants and donations. We provide a service that is helping to sustain a whole workforce of people that choose to be in serve of others, it’s what’s right and what’s needed.
We always need volunteers, interns, soil, seeds, seedling, and funding. We all need each other to survive.
Where we are in life is often partly because of others. Who/what else deserves credit for how your story turned out?
It has been through God 1st that this is possible. My husband, kids, family and friends for keeping me going when I want to walk away and get a job, my staff Rori and Stephanie, my garden members and Board of Directors, Bombay Sapphire and the Bacardi family of brands, Maurice Small, my farming mentor, Slow Food Atlanta, Love is Love Farm, Community Farmers Market, just so many people they believe in what I’m doing and why enough to invest in us, I’m so grateful.
Pricing:
- No donation is to big or small
Contact Info:
- Website: www.asipofparadisegarden.org
- Instagram: @asipofparadisegarden
Image Credits
Kimberly Howell – Natural Look Photography
