Our Projects And Our Story
"A boy was born into two families with two different cultures. It was his process of addressing problems from both sides that made him into a man." a descendent from a conquistador and an indigenous holy marriage.
Hey, my name is Defranco Sarabia, and this is the story of how I developed The South Flores Community. At first, it was just a Facebook page. Now, it's a unifier of peace and sustainability.
There are so many issues not being address, until now! We are here to host community clean-ups, vertical farming workshops, tree planting days, and everything else that nurtures a thriving community!
We title ourselves a community project developer. Our mission statement is to enhance the infrastructure and wellness of communities through community projects. Our Vision statement is to teach other communities how to address problems within their communities!
We aim to turn in to convert into a full 501 non-profit with committees and board members from the community. At the bottom is our constitution that helps guide our vision.
Members
Defranco James Sarabia
Positions:
Founder
Community Engagement Officer
Vertical Farm Technician
A large-scale environmentalist who loves spreadsheets about how many vertical farms, solar panel street lights, and murals that are in the community. Works with Palo Alto College to develop and facilitate healthy relationships and sexual health workshops. Wants to host dance parties with vertical farms. Favorite color is eucalyptus green
Ricardo Murico Lara Herrera
Positions:
9/14/2020 - 5/20/2021
Community Engagement Officer
Vertical Farm Technician
The South Flores Community Grow Space
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The South Flores Grow Space is how we address food insecurity and create self-sustainable communities. We do this in 3 ways
Build vertical farming in public spaces, commercial buildings, and homes of community members
host vertical farming workshops for the community
and the TSFC Grow Space Partnership!
TSFC Grow Space Partnership is our way of building a network of helpful community organizers that work to share vertical farming experience, address community issues, and build community strength.
We started off with a Gofundme that allowed us to buy materials to build a simple vertical farming system we found on the internet. Click here for the design!
Some of our past projects include market education sessions. This is us at community events talking to the community about vertical farming and our program.
Another ongoing project is a vertical farming build at a local coffee shop on the south side of San Antonio, Texas.
Our goal is to create revenue through the selling and implementation of vertical farming to keep the mission going.
Our mission: create a partnership with every community in the world to solve issues of today and innovate the vertical farming industry!
To the right are pictures of us at an event where we taught vertical farming as well as our first ever city-to-city partnership with Houston Texas.
We want to empower community organizers to be vertical farmers. We also offer organizational development sessions for community organizations through our mother foundation, Nimbus Cloudus. From developing a vision plan to organizing volunteers, we are here to help you.
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Art by - Stevie Stwbry
The South Flores Community Grow Space Videos
Project Food Forest
The South Flores Community Grow Space is more than hydroponics!
We believe in the healing power of Food Forests! If you don't know what a food forest is I highly suggest you learn more here!
Our goal is to create a food forest at every community garden, public school, library, and community center in San Antonio!
Featured In!
Local Community News
A local San Antonio Newspaper
Live From The Southside
A local San Antonio Magazine
Student Projects
A collection of student-inspired projects
A Palo Alto College Student Poem
Texas A&M San Antonio Group Project
Voice of our Community
Testimonies from our community
“This is a great group of people, and it shows not only their entrepreneurial spirit and community activism, but that they’re addressing an immediate need in our community. We want to have fresh fruits and vegetables close to us, and this is a way to do it.”
San Antonio District 3 Councilwoman, Rebecca Viagran
“I wanted to have (a vertical-farming system) at the shop because, as we are in the South Side, it would be incredible to educate our Hispanic neighborhood that vertical farming and urban farming was created by their ancestors, the Mayans, and to have another great reason to be proud of their heritage,”
Local Business Owner & Community Organizer, Patricia Butler-Aguilar
Supporting The Well Being Our Community Members
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Here, our projects are aimed to support the mental well being of our community members. We want to ensure that our community members feel connected and support by their community, no matter where they are.
Here are some examples of our projects.
During the beginning of COVID-19 we started to collect pictures of digital or handwritten thank-you notes and words of encouragement for our medical workers and COVID-19 positive patients.
Another project we are proud of our Healthy Relationship Building Campaign, a social media campaign designed to help community members build healthy relationships.
We aspire to eventually host healthy relationship workshops in the future!
Go here for our Instagram to see it!
Working on community infrastructure
Here, our projects are aimed to enhance the quality and integrity of our community's infrastructure. For instance, one of our proudest projects was putting up a solar panel street light in our community!
The story goes as follows, we created a petition asking the city to put a street light on a very dark street. The city denied our request due to a regulation stating that the street lights we currently had we too close together but as you can see the street was still very dark at night.
One of the key issues we were address was how dark streets lead to dark crimes. By implementing light withing a community, we are making is safer for our community members to walk outside! With an even more determined attitude, we raised the funds and put up a street light ourselves!
Click here for the case study the proves that bringing light to your community decreases crime!
Through unifying the concerns of the community we can build a step by step process on how to address how we can find solutions to the problems!
We aim to host community organizing workshops soon!
Our Consitution
This states the values and guidelines of The South Flores Community as well as its members. *in progress of development
The South Flores Community
CONSTITUTION
[DATE ADOPTED 7/18/2020]
Message from the Founder
Starting off as a community Facebook we metamorphosed into a community project developer. Our Facebook was intended to share resources with the community such as 311 services, food drives, CPS solar panel initiatives, and other helpful resources. After starting this project I discovered issues that were still not being addressed in my community. What happened next was petitions, fixing old stop signs, putting solar panel street lights, workforce development, all with communities that have been resource neglected. Now we aim to partner up with a vertical farmer and a community organizer in every community in the world.
- Defranco James Sarabia
ARTICLE I: NAME / MEMBERS
“The South Flores Community”
Defranco Sarabia - Founder (2019)
Ricardo Maucio Lara Herrera - Joined 9/14/2020
ARTICLE II: PURPOSE / POSITIONS
“The South Flores Community” is an organization of individuals who are dedicated to the unification and strengthening of communities through inclusive community-oriented projects.
Mission Statement: Developing projects to enhance the wellness and infrastructure of our community
Vision Statement: Our goal is to establish a partnership with every vertical farmer and community organizer in the world.
Community Engagement Officer
Process And Procedures
Maintains relationships with key community stakeholders and partnerships. CEO’s also help facilitate workshops, events, and marketing content.
Community Stakeholder Relationship Management
Partnerships - VF Maintenance Contracts, Sponsors, Donations
Workshops - Healthy Relations, Workforce Development, Tree Planting Workshops
Events - Informational Booth at events
Marketing Content - Brochures, Website, Logo, Merch
Vertical Farm Technician
Process and Procedures
Maintains relationships with vertical farmers and maintains vertical farming systems. Meets one a week with a vertical farm location to maintain system and partnership development.
Maintain System - Technical maintenance, data inputting, and plant care.
Partnership Development - Creates video content to help strengthen partnerships.
Members
Ricardo H.
Contracts
Coffeecionado
Defranco S.
Contracts
Coffeecionado
ARTICLE III: MEMBERSHIP
A. Members must attend at least one meeting a week to establish deadlines and communication.
B. Members must have access to the constitution
C. In order to be a member, all current members have to agree to appoint them.
D. Members must participate in professional development
Professional Development defined - actively pursuing knowledge that’ll enhance their personal skills and growth. (School, master class, self-assignments)
E. Members are strongly encouraged to support during workshops and events. The more we have time together the more we can get done.
F. Members can be voted out by a simple vote. Members who want to vote out another member must state their case to the whole organization. Members who are being voted out have the right to state their case as to why they should stay. In the situation of a tie, voting must be tabled for 2 weeks from the initial vote date until a final decision is made.
ARTICLE IV: AFFILIATIONS / COLLABORATION
A: The personal beliefs of all persons who contribute to the development of the “The South Flores Community” do not reflect that of “The South Flores Community”.
B. Any form of fundraising will be 100% transparent with the community.
C. In any case, whereas any contributors or members of “The South Flores Community” commit any illegal actions, whether on social media or in real life the individual will be completely disassociated from the organization. We are here to develop the community.
ARTICLE V: COMMUNITY EVENT VENDORING / MARKETING
A: During the marketing of the “The South Flores Community”, the individual assisting in marketing must keep a respectful manner, maintain the mission statement of the “The South Flores Community”, not use harmful or inappropriate language, and not participate or initiate any criminal activities.