David & Maria Muhammad

From our early days in working to provide food security to families who wanted healthy fresh produce in  South Central Los Angeles to Baltimore MD  with the development  of Operation R.O.C.I.T.  (Reclaiming Our Community One Individual at a Time) in the early 2000s. Bro. David and Sis. Maria have been working to reconnect the Black community to nature  and sustainable practices for more than 20 years.  They have found great success in their efforts through “green” entrepreneurship, “green” collar workforce development, and providing life skills to community youth and young adults. 

In 2005, they started Baltimore Citizens for Positive Change a green job workforce development program created to address the high crime and murder rate in their beloved charm city. 

The couple relocated to Sunny San Diego in 2013, and brought their green job workforce development model with them to a long standing community organization I AM My Brother’s Keeper.  Through this program they were able to introduce community members in the Southeast San Diego Community to careers in Green collar workforce and Green social enterprises.  

In 2019, I Am Green, the brain child of Sis. Maria, began gestating.  She realized our community needed more than just career pathways and green social enterprises.  We needed to remember our rightful place in the sustainability landscape, as our voices have been silenced and the values of our ancestors forgotten and/or appropriated, mislabeled, and repackaged in a way that we no longer recognize.   After enrolling in the G.E.W.E.L.S. program of Paving Great Futures,  by 2020, I Am Green was formed into a 501c3.  In partnership with a myriad of community-based organizations, I Am Green has never missed a beat in educating and empowering our community through workshops, trainings, curriculum, and resources with a much more holistic approach, staying true to our mission of connecting our community to the Planet and Each Other.