Do you know the saying “the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree?” Raised by a bounty of female artists and gardeners, Bari was first introduced to floral and landscape design through her grandmothers. Growing up, Bari would brush off the evidence of a morning spent playing in the dirt and tag along with her mom to work at the local nursery. Both excited and inspired, she learned about the interconnectedness of humans and nature firsthand.
In middle school, Bari founded her first gardening business: Flower Power. A few years later, Bari created a vegetable garden for a community center servicing low-income families. Through this garden, she taught children to grow and cook their own food, with excess produce donated to the on-site food bank.
Bari received her undergraduate degree from the University of Wisconsin, where she studied psychology, environmental studies, and medicine. Earning her masters from Johns Hopkins University, she researched the impact of food access and equity on low-income students and created garden and farmers market programs to guide these students’ agency in growing their own food. Today, these programs are maintained through a student group, Chicas Verdes, which develops socially-minded leaders by connecting young people to nature.
