A few months ago when the weather was still very cold, I received a text introduction to Dhruva LaTorre, the co-owner of Plant Base Market from a mutual Artist friend who is actively involved in community development projects to support community wellness and well being. I had heard about Plant Base, but because it's all the way across the city in an area that I don't regularly travel to especially in colder weather, I hadn't made the time to go there yet. The mutual friend who made the introduction is someone who knows about the projects I've been developing and the work I've been doing in community and youth development, health and wellness and the arts, and he said that he thought the owner of Plant Base and I needed to meet. I'm always grateful for introductions, especially from people whose work I respect, and so I responded with thanks that I'd happily meet and talk.
Because both of our schedules were full at the time, we made an appointment to talk on the phone first. That conversation was such a wonderful one so full of likeminded and inspiring sharing of ideas and vision for our individual work that we decided to meet in person and continue the conversation onsite at Plant Base.
According to the website, "Plant Base was founded in November 2018 by Dhruva Latorre and Andy Hertz, 2 friends who shared a passion for animal rights, protecting the environment, health, helping people, and bold ideas to change the world." Their mission "is to help people implement a happier and healthier lifestyle through plant based foods and ethical products sold in a zero-waste format." The website goes on to describe that, "With a strong emphasis on sustainability, animal rights and humanitarian rights, ethics and health, our mail goal is to provide access to affordable and healthy food for neighborhoods in need."
Dhruva's family had a non-profit that helped provide healthy food to underprivileged residents in Jersey City and surrounding communities, and he decided to turn Plant Base into a not-for-profit so that in addition to providing a community based place where people could gather for healthy food, he would be able to provide food on a pay what you can basis and also branch out into classes, community and youth outreach.
Each time I visit or speak with Dhruva, I am inspired, and the projects that I am working on and developing are becoming more nuanced and layered with meaning because of the vision he has not only been discussing but that he has been actively living and creating in the community around him. His long term goals are to create a model that can be recreated anywhere, and his daily life is a model of how we can all learn to live our lives in harmony with the world around us, with respect for other people, animals and the earth.
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