A couple of former pro skateboarders created an urban farm to fight food insecurity and connect with their community. Here's this week's KRLD Difference Makers.
Mike Crum and Rob Cahill are two of the most prolific skateboarders to come out of Texas. Now, they're using their platform to make positive changes in their community.
"We knew skateboarding helped us, individually and also socially," Rob said. "It was very helpful for our own development and a lot of great fortune and privilege we've had has been a result of skateboarding. It's a culture that comes along with it."
Part of that culture is service. The two co-founded a non-profit called 4DWN.
"The way skateboarding works is you constantly are pushing forward. You want to do things better, bigger, faster, further and same goes for whatever we do so it's a service driven organization," Rob said. "We started finding out about problems in our community. We started to learn about food desserts and opportunity gaps and the problems that come from systemic disparity."
Along with a skatepark, 4DWN has created an urban farm and food rescue.
"Take for instance our weekly Sunday Service. That is food rescue," Rob said. "It turns out that about 30% of food goes to waste. Almost 40% of Dallas, all of South Dallas, is a food desert as defined by the USDA. These volunteers come down every Sunday on the notion of lets rescue this food, let's get it to these parts of town. We call it Sunday Service because it truly is service! We're delivering people healthy, nutritious food to folks in the food desert."
For Rob, they're feeding people more than food.
"Nutrition is not only your physical health, but your mental and spiritual and emotional health as well," Rob said. "And we know that spreading food and eating is a form of love so it's a very healing thing."
We're proud to call Rob Cahill and 4 DOWN this week's KRLD Difference Makers.
"If you want to make an impact and have some fun while doing it and meet really cool people and turn what would be trash into nutritional treasure for some people who really need it, come join us! And at the same you might mess around and learn how to skate, because we give free skate lessons too," Rob said.
To donate or volunteer, visit 4DWN.
If you know someone making a difference in the community, send us an email at differencemaker@krld.com.
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