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The stereotypical image of a twenty- something is perpetuated by what we see in popular television and movies - a self-involved person concerned only with the latest fashion trend, his romantic life or his career. We rarely see any examples of young people concerned about the world around them in substantive way. Nor do we see any examples of young people actively engaged in making a difference in their communities. The stereotype, of course, is an oversimplification of reality. There are in fact a significant number of people under thirty who are making positive impacts in their communities, and Daniel Ross is one such example. At age 28 he is in his fifth year as the executive director of Nuestras Raices - Spanish for "our roots" - in Holyoke, Massachusetts.

Nuestras Raices is a grassroots organization dedicated to revitalizing neighborhoods through agriculture. It began in 1992 after a student from a local college teamed up with another community organization to clean up one of the many vacant lots in south Holyoke. This small city of 45,000 was hit hard by the recession in the 1970's; and when this once booming industrial town went bust, the city landscape became marred with trash strewn vacant lots and abandoned and decaying buildings. In order to sustain the improvements made to this lot, the decision was made to create an urban garden. The solution was practical in that it took advantage of the agricultural skills of the Puerto Rican immigrants in the community who comprise about one-third of the population. Many were farmers before they came to the United States and many have worked with migrant farming groups around the region. It also provided the community with organically grown fruits and vegetables and began to restore hope among a population in Holyoke, which had long felt abandoned by the city's political leaders. Other gardens were started with the success of the first garden, La Faquinta, and Nuestras Raices was born.

However, just two years after it began, Nuestras Raices was foundering. The reputation of the organization became badly damaged and was on the verge of bankruptcy after a former board member was accused of embezzling tens of thousands of dollars in grant money. It was an organization with a lot of potential but no one to lead it.

Just one year out of college, Ross became aware of the opportunity to lead Nuestras Raices while a community service worker at the East Coast Migrant Health Project. Ross was familiar with the organization and liked that is was an organization of "low-income Spanish people working together to find solutions in their own community." Ross always believed "real change comes from real people working together in a community, and community gardens are a beautiful way of doing that," he says.

Ross grew up in Western Massachusetts, and his commitment to community activism was instilled in him at an early age by his parents. His father is a former labor organizer, and his mother is an educator who travels the country conducting workshops on effective teaching strategies. Ross has always been committed to creating "deep lasting social change instead of a band-aide." Nuestras Raices, Ross felt, would be an organization where he could put his philosophy into practice.

Ross became the Executive Director in 1995, and in the five years since he has been in charge, he has helped this foundering organization realize its original promise. Ross has increased the membership by 225% through community organizing and project development. The number of staff and volunteers has quadrupled during Ross' tenure. He was also one of the founding members of Communities in Sustaining Agriculture, a participant in the W.K. Kellogg Foundation's Integrated Farming Systems Project. It's no wonder that he has been dubbed the "Michael Jordan of Community Service" by the Do Something Foundation.

Ross' greatest success has been the completion of a community agricultural center and greenhouse. It took years just to secure the land and after much wrangling with local, state, and federal authorities, Ross has managed to turn his vision into reality. The Centro Agriculo is home to the Nuestras Raices offices, a café/restaurant, a library filled with agricultural and environmental resources, and meeting space for the group's workshops on organic farming techniques. The facility is also home to a community kitchen for people in the neighborhood to prepare and can Hispanic foods, like sofrito, to bring to market. There is also space for residents to set up small catering businesses which will operate on a cooperative basis from the center. Adjacent to the Centro Agriculo is a green house which will mean an extended growing season and the ability to grow plants more cheaply.

Ross maintains his vision with a warm pot of Puerto-Rican coffee and an open-door policy. As he recently explained to one interviewer, "I want to keep Nuestras Raices personal. A lot of nonprofits distance themselves from their communities by calling them clients. Here, we're all members…we figure we're in this together."

Through Ross' leadership, Nuestras Raices has helped create five large community gardens and a youth garden in urban sections across Holyoke, and provided agricultural and nutritional education to local residents. Ross' new vision for the organization is self-sufficiency. As Ross told one interviewer, "we promote self-sufficiency among our members, and we hold the same expectations for ourselves." Ross hopes that within two years Nuestras Raices will be able to operate independent of grant money and other types of funding.