Planted in Miami

Five years ago, while Meena Jagannath was working with women in Haiti after the destructive Hurricane ravaged the island, an opportunity presented itself here in Miami.  Having never visited the city, she decided to take a chance and brought her expertise as a Human Rights lawyer and eventually co-founded the Community Justice Project, which is a group of community lawyers who represent community organizers and grassroots groups in low-income communities of color. She has been involved in such controversial and high profile cases such as the Michael Brown shooting and the tasering death of former Miami graffiti artist, Israel "Reefa" Hernandez-Llach.

We spoke with Meena about the current state of affairs and challenges that are being faced from immigration to police authority and how the Community Justice Project plans to invite more people to the conversation through activism.

We hope you enjoy the conversation,

Jeanette & Alex

For behind the scenes photos, show notes and more visit www.plantedinmiami.com.

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When you throw something away, where is away? Six years ago, Dave Doebler found out the answer one afternoon on his kayak where he discovered 75 pounds of trash floating on the waters of Miami Beach. After wrangling his friends and family to help him clean up, he quickly realized that they either needed a bigger boat or more help. Eventually Dave and his wife Dara decided to create VolunteerCleanup.org, a free online resource which allows residents to lead and/or join a cleanup meetup to help rid the cities coastlines of the abundance of trash.

Some of the most commonly found items in the water are single use plastic bottles, straws and cigarette butts (which are made from plastic and are not biodegradable). The trash is not only effecting the marine life (eating the plastic or being trapped by paper bags), and the oceans (acidity levels rising due to the plastic chemicals) but it’s also clogging our drains which prevent them from working properly which in turn contributes to the egregious flooding.  And as Miami is ground zero for sea level rise, this is a huge and immediate issue we should all be concerned about.

We sat down with Dara and Dave to discuss how they got involved with these issues and why it’s become such a passionate cause for them, how their efforts have changed the way local businesses think of trash and their upcoming event, International Coastal Cleanup Day, which seeks to capture citizen science data to help tackle this enormous and growing problem.

We hope you enjoy the conversation,

Jeanette & Alex

For behind the scenes show notes, photos, videos and more visit www.plantedinmiami.com.

Follow us on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and YouTube @plantedinmiami

Carolina Pina is the Director of WIN Lab Miami - an eight month accelerator program for women entrepreneurs which helps them to grow sustainable ventures.  Originally launched in 2013 by Babson College in Massachusetts, the program expanded to Florida in 2016 where the first round of attendees just recently finished the program.

Carolina studied Chemical Engineering in Venezuela and Industrial and Systems Engineering at FIU and attended graduate school at Rice University where she received her MBA.  She is an advisor, entrepreneur, philanthropist and the founder of Ignitus - a consulting practice that helps organizations implement social impact initiatives

After experiencing gender inequality early in her career she knew she wanted to get involved with helping to empower women to become entrepreneurs, shatter the glass ceiling and eliminate the disparity in pay that still exists between men and women.  Listen in to find out why Carolina is giving us all permission to fail.

We hope you enjoy the conversation,

Jeanette & Alex

For behind the scenes photos, show notes and more visit www.plantedinmiami.com.

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After self-proclaimed native, Meg Daly, broke both of her elbows in a biking accident and was forced to slow down and smell the asphalt on her walking commute to physical therapy, she got a crazy idea.  Transform the unused space underneath the Metrorail into a 10 mile linear park, urban trail and living art destination called, The Underline.  You might say it's Miami's response or ode to New York's immensely popular, The High Line, flipped upside down.

In this interview, we talk about who was the first person she told about her "crazy idea" and how she went from never having been involved in the community to overseeing a $120 million project and what the future holds for creative public spaces in Miami.  We are very excited about The Underline, the business opportunities and jobs it will create, the art and culture it will invite people to interact with and once you know more about this highly anticipated project, you will be too.

We hope you enjoy the conversation,

Jeanette + Alex

For behind the scenes show notes, photos and more visit www.plantedinmiami.com

Follow us on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and Pinterest @plantedinmiami

When Chris Adamo left New York City with the love of his life five years ago and exchanged his muted, cold weather wardrobe for bright and colorful Jams World t-shirts, he didn't only want to look like a local, he wanted to live like one too.

So he joined the folks at WhereBy.Us as the Director of Business Development. These folks are the creators of the very helpful and practical online resource for Miami locals, The New Tropic and other initiatives that help people connect and engage in their respective cities.

We met up with Chris at the uber cool co-working space - CIC, where we learned all about his disconnected life in NY, how his wife completely changed the trajectory of his life and how his mission of connecting people to their cities has earned him the moniker, The Dot Connector.

Hope you enjoy the convo.

Jeanette + Alex

Follow us on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest and YouTube @plantedinmiami
For behind the scenes photos, show notes and more visit www.plantedinmiami.com

“A room without books is like a body without a soul.” ― Marcus Tullius Cicero

In the age of digital consumption and immediate gratification, Mitchell Kaplan, founder of Books and Books is inviting Miami and beyond to slow things down by stepping into 'The Great Good Place,' in this case, one of his multiple landmark bookstores.

A Miami native and lover of literature, Mitchell has devoted his life to providing the city with community spaces to engage and discover literature. Miami hasn't always had the best reputation for book lovers but through his persistence and the addition of the Miami Book Fair, the city is now on the map for authors and literary enthusiasts.

We sat down with Mitchell to discuss his path to bookseller, how the store has stayed relevant in this digital era and how community and small businesses are the heart of any city.  It's a good one. We hope you enjoy.

Jeanette + Alex

For behind the scenes show notes, photos and more visit www.plantedinmiami.com.

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Since a very young age, Nathi Alarcon has been a go-getter.  She knew at 7 years old that she wanted to pursue a career in medicine and worked hard to achieve that goal.  What she wasn’t expecting was being derailed in college with an auto-immune disease that eventually changed the course of her life.  Her passionate nature took her down a path of healing and eventually lead her into the kitchen where she discovered the power and connection of food.  

Today she is the co-owner of Fresh and Easy, the first cold-pressed juice bar and restaurant in Colombia as well as Cold Pressed Raw right here in Brickell. As if that wasn’t enough, she also teaches at the Matthew Kenney school on the weekends and is training for a half ironman. Talk about a go-getter!

Nathi’s outlook on life is infectious and we hope you will be as inspired by her story and mission as we are.

Jeanette + Alex

For behind the scenes photos, show notes and more visit www.plantedinmiami.com

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Here in Miami when you say the name, Frankie Ruiz, chances are it conjures up memories of the incredibly popular and late Puerto Rican salsa singer belting out, "Bailando"or another one of his many popular hits.  But to many in Miami's athletic circles, Frankie Ruiz is synonymous with the Miami Marathon which just celebrated its 15th year this past January.  Inspired by his father from a young age to run, he found it a great way to explore his hometown and as a sport he could always compete in.

Looking to inspire his team of runners at Belen Jesuit Preparatory School, Frankie invited a 12 year old athlete and double amputee by the name of Rudy Garcia Tolson who had aspirations of running a marathon. This fortuitous meeting eventually set the wheels in motion for Frankie and his partners at the time to create a marathon in Miami that could stand toe to toe with other reputable races such as New York City and Chicago. Faced with Miami's bad reputation of being a hot, humid, and crime ridden city, many may have thought that a 26.2 road race through the streets of Miami was a bad idea, but Frankie and his team have worked hard to silence the naysayers and to prove to runners throughout the world that this isn't a marathon or (spinning) finisher's medal you want to miss.

Frankie's involvement in the community is widespread and his desire to empower athletes of all levels to achieve their personal best is evident in the various groups he's involved in, including the 7 State Championships and 1 SE National Regional Nike NXN Title earned by the Belen Jesuit Cross Country Team which he has coached for the past 19 years.

We hope you enjoy listening,

Jeanette & Alex

For behind the scenes photos, show notes and more visit www.plantedinmiami.com

Follow us on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Pinterest @plantedinmiami

Korin Sutton is a dedicated individual.  In high school, he started lifting weights and paying attention to his nutrition to get in shape (and to get girls).  He then joined the military to serve his country because the men in his life served honorably and he wanted to do the same.  And then in college, after hearing a lecture given by Gary Yourofsky about animal abuse and veganism, he was so affected that he decided he could no longer continue contributing to the cruelty and suffering of animals.  That lecture completely changed the trajectory of his life and he is now a fitness trainer and nutritionist, vegan activist and a competitive bodybuilder.

We had a great conversation with Korin, getting to know what makes him tick and diving deeply into why he's so passionate about challenging the status quo in the bodybuilding field.

We hope you enjoy listening,

Jeanette & Alex

For show notes, photos and more visit www.plantedinmiami.com

Follow us on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and Pinterest @plantedinmiami

The Messengers is a documentary by Chris Krimitsos, Niel Guilarte and Willie Harper, that tells the story of podcasting and the people behind this relatively new form of storytelling and digital media.  It follows and focuses on several podcasters as they tell their story of why they love podcasting, the growth podcasting has seen in recent years, and its future.  One of the podcasters featured is Miami local and Gamertag Radio (GTR) founder, Danny Peña.  (Episode 11)

Danny recently celebrated the 12th anniversary of GTR at Podfest Multimedia Expo in Orlando, Florida where he delivered an extraordinary keynote that left us misty eyed and inspired.  He has that effect on people.  Today we speak to him about the film and his role in it which makes its Miami debut on May 5th at 7:30pm at the Manuel Artime Theater in Little Havana.

We hope you enjoy listening,

Jeanette & Alex

For behind the scenes photos, videos, show notes and more visit www.plantedinmiami.com

Follow us on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, Youtube and Pinterest @plantedinmiami