{"id":2983,"date":"2020-02-21T07:37:13","date_gmt":"2020-02-21T12:37:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/alumni\/?p=2983"},"modified":"2020-02-18T11:58:33","modified_gmt":"2020-02-18T16:58:33","slug":"get-to-know-yolanda-grandison-04-06-growing-crops-and-jobs-in-africa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/alumni\/2020\/02\/21\/get-to-know-yolanda-grandison-04-06-growing-crops-and-jobs-in-africa\/","title":{"rendered":"Get to Know: Yolanda Grandison \u201904, \u201906, growing crops and jobs in Africa"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"People
Bountiful Harvest Farm is near Ijebu, Nigeria.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Yolanda Grandison is a woman of many interests.<\/p>\n

After earning a biology degree elsewhere, she came to University of Detroit Mercy to earn a master\u2019s degree in Health Services Administration and another in Computer Information. She has a full-time IT position in the medical field in Detroit. But it\u2019s what she\u2019s doing half a world away that feeds her passion.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have a pig farm in Nigeria,\u201d she says, as though it\u2019s a statement a person might hear from just about anyone. \u201cIt\u2019s an acre and we also grow plantains there.\u201d<\/p>\n

Grandison said she\u2019s always had an interest in agriculture, but the farm is more about service to the community than profit. That\u2019s a value she says was learned and blossomed during her time at Detroit Mercy.<\/p>\n

\u201cI give credit to Sr. Mary Kelly,\u201d Grandison said, of the late, beloved associate professor in the College of Health Profession. \u201cShe is the one who really set me on to community service. She always said, \u2018Your degree works for other people, not you.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

It was four years ago, Grandison said, that she started looking to start a business. But to make it meaningful, she said it needed a community service component.<\/p>\n

\"Yolanda
Yolanda Grandison and her business partner Joshua Nuga<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

She worked with metro Detroit-based Global Africa Business Association, or GABA, and met Joshua Nuga, a resident of Nigeria who became her partner in Bountiful Harvest Farm. What started out as a one-acre pig and plantain farm has expanded and now grows palm on 10 acres nearby.<\/p>\n

\u201cRed palm oil is used in cooking and in other things like laundry soap in Nigeria,\u201d Grandison said. \u201cIt\u2019s a staple there and we are growing the palm and will soon build a processing plant to extract the oil.\u201d<\/p>\n

The goal, Grandison says, is to provide jobs and other support systems to improve life in the community outside Lagos that Bountiful Harvest calls home.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn Africa, there is so much poverty and joblessness,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd kids are not going to school so it\u2019s a cycle. We are providing jobs to hopefully bring people out of poverty.\u201d<\/p>\n

Grandison says as the farm grows, so will the benefits to the workers. She and Nuga are hoping to soon be able to cover the fees area children must pay to attend school. She would also like to set up a system to collect food for distribution to the poor, like Gleaners does in Michigan.<\/p>\n

\"Piglets
Bountiful Harvest raises pigs as well.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cThere is nowhere for people there to go if they\u2019re hungry,\u201d Grandison said. \u201cWe\u2019d like to set up a system so people are not worried about food.\u201d<\/p>\n

She says she has been asked \u201cWhy Africa?\u201d by people who see many of the same problems here, but feels addressing the similar problems here would be beyond her reach.<\/p>\n

\u201cI love doing all the agricultural stuff,\u201d she said, \u201cAnd I love being able to help put people back to work. The people there love the idea that we\u2019re there because they see jobs.\u201d<\/p>\n

Grandison travels to Nigeria a couple times a year to keep an eye on things and do the paperwork that is inherent when two people are in a business partnership half a world away from each other.<\/p>\n

\u201cI love it,\u201d she said. \u201cI believe we are making a difference.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yolanda Grandison is a woman of many interests. After earning a biology degree elsewhere, she came to University of Detroit Mercy to earn a master\u2019s degree in Health Services Administration and another in Computer Information. She has a full-time IT position in the medical field in Detroit. But it\u2019s what …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":66,"featured_media":2987,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[17,4,2],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/sites.udmercy.edu\/alumni\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/88\/2020\/02\/plantains-featured.jpg?fit=810%2C426&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8Kcng-M7","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2983"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/66"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2983"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2983\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2989,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2983\/revisions\/2989"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2987"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2983"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2983"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2983"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}