Presented as part of The Gifford Foundation “What If…” Film Series
In partnership with Syracuse Grows

“When you put beauty in a place that has none, that’s a game changer.”

— Ron Finley, the “Gangster Gardener”

Free Community Screening

Directed by Delila Vallot (2015)

South Los Angeles. What comes to mind is gangs, drugs, liquor stores, abandoned buildings and vacant lots. The last thing that you would expect to find is a beautiful garden sprouting up through the concrete, coloring the urban landscape. As part of an urban gardening movement taking root in South LA, people are planting to transform their neighborhoods and are changing their own lives in the process. Calling for people to put down their guns and pick up their shovels, these “gangster gardeners” are creating an oasis in the middle of one of the most notoriously dangerous places in America.

“CAN YOU DIG THIS” follows the inspirational journeys of four unlikely gardeners, discovering what happens when they put their hands in the soil. This is not a story of science and economics. This is a story of the human spirit, inspiring people everywhere to pick up their shovels and “plant some shit.”