Alena Agyros

Alena Agyros is known world-wide as the person who made poverty more bearable. Having gotten her start in Los Angeles, she innovated ways to increase sustainable production of vegetables in the small urban spaces she had available to her. While she allegedly started in a community garden with the aid of others, given that her family was made up of poor immigrants, she began turning her green thumb to those closest to her.

In a 2 bedroom apartment shared by 5 people with a small balcony, she started out growing tomatoes and basil–barely enough for a good pizza, but enough to help with the groceries. After a few months, she began growing spinach, onions, eggplant and garlic on the balcony. With so much cut down on groceries, finally the family could start saving money. While they were by no means rich as a result of Alena’s actions, she was able to take the sharp edge off of hunger for the family.

From there, she was volunteered for other community gardens by her parents. She began teaching community gardening classes at twelve years old, with an emphasis on sustainability and conservation of space, and while her teaching style is often described as “odd” in reviews, the classes blew up in popularity.

Detractors say that her popularity is driven by cute-factor, given that she was just a child when she started out, but it’s hard to argue with the results. In the greater Los Angeles metropolitan area, small-scale sustainable vegetable gardens have cropped up everywhere. While some areas have tried to pass ordinances to make it illegal, it’s been overwhelmingly met with appreciation from the lower classes and disadvantaged people in the city.

When she was 14 years old, Alena and her mother were interviewed by NPR on Alena’s so-called revolutionary methods for at-home farming, and her story went international. Her mother explained that, while her daughter was often “on the shy side” and “a little quieter than her friends,” her love for the plants was unparalleled. It was care and attention that helped the gardens flourish, so “for everyone listening at home, you just need to make sure this is a labor of love, that’s what Alena does.”

After that interview, Alena’s family was invited by a city planner in Tottori, Japan to come visit the city and offer some insights into small-scale arid agriculture, which is when she made it big on the world-stage.

Discovering that cities in Japan have such a high population density, Alena took her work to Tokyo soon afterwards, and continued her work to aid the poor in the never ending battle against starvation and poverty. Learning Japanese, learning the new meteorological conditions, and acclimating to an entirely new country would not stop her on her quest to feed the world, it seems.

Her dedication to her craft has gotten her an invitation to Hope’s Peak Academy, though still few know Alena Agyros personally, many are enthusiastic about her work and are ready to see her debut as an adult with the skills that the Academy provides.