Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Krystyna Medina. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Krystyna, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Alright, so we’d love to hear about how you got your first client or customer. What’s the story?

As a high school student, I was interested in business. When my senior year was approaching I wanted to get as involved in my school as I possibly could. The environmental movement was becoming a huge movement online and I wanted to partake in this green initiative. One part of the movement that really caught my attention was cleaning up litter and growing food. I encouraged my high school robotics teacher to help me get a school garden going. We applied to Home Depot for a grant and received the funds to make the school garden happen. Instagram/Gofundme were wonderful tools that we utilized to run campaigns in order to gain additional funds. From here, I was inspired to continue to develop school gardens to teach students about growing their own food. This first initial project is what encouraged me to do the work that we do today!

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

Growing up in South Florida, I didn’t experience anything farm related until I moved North to a more suburban area. After my first high school project, I decided that nonprofit work, a life of serving people was the way I wanted to go. However, at the time I had no clue what I was doing. I hopped on social media to post about the project and my personal interest when it came to environmental work. During this stage, I hadn’t yet committed to food work. I had to do what I could to learn more and through my Instagram, I met farmers who wanted to assist in my gardening education. For months I worked with a local gardener, Raj Naturals, the owner of Revolutionary Gardens, on his beautiful projects in the community to learn everything I could about this line of work. Through this experience, I met a lot of people but I was able to recognize that food work was truly my passion. Nourished From Nature was then developed and became my main focus. My mom was the one who randomly sent me a Facebook ad one day where a local grant writer was looking for someone to join her team to assist in grant writing. At this moment, I took my chances and applied regardless of the fact that I had never written a grant before. Upon meeting Jodi Riley, the owner of Jodi Riley Consulting, I knew that I had to do my best to make it on her team to get an idea of what the nonprofit world was like. Although Jodi Riley was hiring for a grant writer, she took me on as a social media manager, which provided me the opportunity to become immersed in the nonprofit world. I learned incredible amounts of information from my time spent at Jodi’s consulting firm.
With the care, education, and direction given by the people above (not everyone was mentioned) I was able to establish a nonprofit. Nourished From Nature today is an organization that promotes Food Security, Sovereignty, and Justice to marginalized groups through community-run food systems, education, and arts.

Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?

In the beginning, I was caught up in the idea that helping people was enough. No matter how much it depleted me as an individual, I was rejuvenated by the praise I would receive from others for cleaning up the streets and encouraging people not to litter. There came a point when I realized that the work I was doing was not truly impactful. No matter how many streets I cleaned up, there would still be litter there again in a few days’ time. I had to dig deeper into how the community and myself are being impacted. That’s when I noticed growing food, having access to food, and being able to advocate for a different food system was a mission that can transform a long-term issue into steps toward a solution.

How did you put together the initial capital you needed to start your business?

When starting out, the money I made from small odd jobs is what I used to pay for the organization to do things. Being that I was young, most of my friends volunteered to support the project. Nonetheless, over the years, our main funding source as an organization comes strictly from the jobs I work.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.nourishedfromnature.org/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nfninc
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/NourishedFromNature/