Malik Bakr peered out from his tent and looked into the Hawaiian jungle as it steadily rained. The light from his phone was the only beacon in the darkness.
Only days before in November 2017, the then 19-year-old’s uncle died in a hit-and-run motorcycle crash. Bakr said he drove by the wreck earlier that day without knowing it was his uncle.
Bakr, a black Muslim man, went to Hawaii at his uncle’s invitation to heal after he was racially profiled at Gainesville’s Bass Pro Shops a year prior. He tried to buy a hunting gun with his friend, but the employee refused.
In the days following his uncle’s death, with only his blue-nose pit-mix puppy, Liko, for company, Bakr realized that life was too short to be bitter.
“You’re here for a limited time,” he thought to himself. “What are you doing while you’re here?”
He moved back to his hometown of Gainesville and started For Earth By Earth, a nonprofit organization seeking to serve the same underserved east-side community he grew up in.
Bakr, now 20, recruited his former classmates from PK Yonge Developmental Research School to build his dream into a reality, he said.
No one on the all-volunteer staff has more than a few years of college education. Bakr only holds a high school diploma.
The young team has already created a five-year plan to address the problems the eastside faces including food deserts, poverty and crime, Bakr said.
Part of the plan is to install community gardens to empower the families to grow their own healthy food, he said. In January, the group and Grow Hub, a nonprofit plant nursery, built a garden at 2900 NE Eighth Ave.
For Earth By Earth serves meals at Grace Marketplace during the day. After school, middle and high school students can participate in the group’s community basketball team and mentoring program.
“I have so many ambitious ventures, but I start with what matters most,” Bakr said. “Start close to home.”
Bakr saw how his appearance spurred hate two years ago when he was denied a gun at Bass Pro Shops. Now, he said his identity is a point of pride and celebration.
“Building the black community up starts with putting the black community on a pedestal,” he said.
Alexis Akridge was once Bakr’s classmate but now serves as the chief administrative officer of For Earth By Earth. The 21-year-old UF health education and behavior senior is responsible for finding volunteers and filling out paperwork.
Lots and lots of paperwork.
Before Akridge was on board, Bakr was funding For Earth By Earth with his paycheck as a construction worker. Now, the organization is a registered nonprofit.
Akridge said her favorite part of the organization is mentoring the students at an after school program.
The program gives the east-side middle and high school students a safe, empowering place to go after school, she said.
“I know how that side of the city is and how the lack of resources shows,” Akridge said. “It’s just rewarding.”
The kids in the after-school program jump on the staff members’ cars to keep them from leaving, Bakr said.
After Akridge got involved in August, she recruited her boyfriend, Stephen Fox, who now serves as the organization’s chief of agricultural services.
Before joining the organization, the 21-year-old UF anthropology senior planned to be an archaeologist. He plans on going to graduate school to study sustainable economics and food sources instead of artifacts.
“Nothing that I’ve ever learned in any university setting could prepare me to deal with these deep systemic issues,” Fox said.
Fox said many community empowerment programs fail because the people at the top don’t understand the issues on the ground.
Fox said the group’s success comes from the volunteers’ experiences with the community’s kids and leaders.
“All you have to show them is that a few people care,” he said.
Bakr has it all planned out. He’ll start in Gainesville and then move For Earth By Earth into more cities, he said.
In Tupelo, Mississippi, Bakr has 120 acres of family-owned land ready to grow crops for the community. His father in Tampa wants to expand the organization into central Florida.
On Monday, he’s flying to Cleveland to meet with extended family and begin paperwork to bring the organization to Ohio.
From there, he’ll take it international. The rest of the team looks forward to it, Akridge said.
“You take For Earth By Earth wherever you go,” she said. “Once you leave, you start your own sprout.”
For now, the team meets in an event space in Grace Marketplace.
Bakr talks of food trucks, eco-homes and even an aquaponics farm. His brain is a Willy Wonka factory for change.
While For Earth By Earth offers many services, Bakr said it is ultimately up to the community to take advantage of them.
“You can lead someone to success, but whether they take it,” he paused, “that’s on them.”
When Bakr looks at the kids he mentors, he said he sees himself. And that is the answer to the question he asked in the tent.
Contact Hannah Beatty at hbeatty@alligator.org and follow her on Twitter @hannahbeatty_
Malik Bakr sits in the driver’s seat of a car with his family friend at his Uncle Ernest’s Celebration of Life ceremony in Hawaii. Ernest was killed in a motorcycle accident, which spurred Bakr’s decision to move back to Gainsville.
